>> It's more like it turned out that way with Freescale's takeover by NXP.

> Whatever their name was in that given week

That's the point: It wasn't a mere name change but a takeover, as I wrote. Opposed to mere name changes, takeovers usually entail product strategy adaptations in the smaller (or even both) companies in order to streamline the product portfolios of the (former) two companies.

> FreeScale did try to keep PPC going for a few years after Apple’s Intel switch

Yes, and unfortunately with the wrong roadmap/strategy only catering for their networking/telecom customers which made them lose a significant share of their SIMD-dependent military and aerospace/avionics customers to Intel, starting by changing the announced e700's base from e600 before Apple's Intel switch announcement to e500(v2) after Apple's Intel switch announcement, which eventually resulted (with e500mc as intermediate step fixing the questionable decisions made with e500(v1/v2)) in the e5500 lacking AltiVec. They then attempted to correct this with the e6500 with AltiVec, but I'm not sure how many of their previous military and aerospace/avionics customers they could win back, if any.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=11623&start=27 (#28)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=193 (#194)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=270 (#271)

> but that ended more than 10 years ago

Yes, essentially with the takeover in 2015, although NXP released lower-power and faster-memory e6500-based QorIQ T2/T4 chip variants in 2016 (#17) and new e200-based chips for automotive at least until 2021 (#210).

> with everything afterwards just being old cores on newer
> nodes just to satisfy costumers still in that ecosystem

The only Power(PC) die shrink after the takeover I'm aware of is the 16nm e200 for automotive. The lower-power and faster-memory e6500-based T2/T4 chip variants from 2016 were not the result of die shrinks.
If you mean *before* the takeover, I'd say that the e6500 surely isn't just an e5500 on a newer node. While the e5500 indeed was shrunk from 45nm in the QorIQ P5 to 28nm in the QorIQ T1, the e6500 has always been 28nm, and I'm not aware of it ever being put on a node newer than this.
The e6500 was Freescale's attempt at winning back previously lost customers from SIMD-dependent military and aerospace/avionics markets while at the same time keeping their existing networking/telecom customers. That the e6500 may have seen successors without the takeover by NXP is pure speculation on my part, of course, but at least roadmaps had hints on them (if that means anything, that is).