Well they didn't have much choice here. MediaTek, Samsung, and the rest are equally bad. The ARM SoC market is flooded with chips designed to have the shortest SW support lifespan possible.
Maybe Nvidia can get its shit together and put out a competitive ARM chip.
MTK has the advantage of somewhat available (leaked) design information and source code, and there's a pretty thriving Chinese developer community --- at least around their phones/tablets.
Sadly, I don't think Qualcomm is even any worse than average. I don't think for example MediaTek, Samsung or Nvidia are doing any better.
I think even the Pinephones with their Allwinners and Rockchips aren't perfect, with both models being based on I believe older SoCs (although the Rockchip in the Pro has been modified, afaik).
What an unfortunate choice by Lenovo.