The CPUs has been a tour de force from the S/360, they have never relented, so empirically yes the customers care a lot or they wouldn't keep doing this.

The software side seems to be more a tale of dichotomy. The MVS lineage is technically impressive but undoubtedly bizarre and old feeling. The TPF lineage seems like eventually somewhere the cloud movement will dip for certain cases so it is ahead of time. Linux is neither stale nor avant-garde, I guess that is their strategy to remain "contemporary". VM was always the most delightful one but internally forever the odd one out.