I think we are passed that, as even if the manufacturer would come out and say "we don't need that many DAC chips for a good performance" and sell the DAPs for a better price, it will be assumed to be "not high end enough" by the audiophiles. I of course, don't want to bad mouth the M9+, as I was actually considering it, but the market is now driven by the audiophiles that are ready to spend more money for more DACs, and juding the products based on DAC count and price. It is even weird that some recent TOTL DAPs have less output power than previous generation, and some didn't even cosider improving the output power. M9+ is (as far as I have seen) the only update that also improves the output power.
For me as a full size HP listener, M9+ is a welcome addition due to its physical properties (as a "DAP", I use M17) and >1W @32 ohm output power, but I prefer a clean, unaltered, neutral tuning and reading about the "explicitly warm" tuning I think I changed my mind. Which is actually why I also skipped H7. The design philosophy and additional SD card slot is great, but I don't want any "added warmth". The Topping G5 sounds superb, but fails on charging and battery size. Well, no perfect product for me so far...