> after investing all that time and expense on development, why wouldn't
> they deploy the Titan core?

I've no idea. I believe that in his amigaworld.net posting (which I quoted from back when we (as in you and me) still didn't know about the semi-official "Titan is dead" reports) minator implied that design partner Intrinsity having been purchased by Apple might have played a role. But maybe I'm reading too much into his comment. On the other hand, the Linley Group takes the same line: "Titan [...] ended up on the scrap heap when design partner Intrinsity was acquired by Apple".
And then there's the question as to what's been the original source for the July's "Titan is dead" reports. As far as I could research it was the Linley Group circulating this via their Microprocessor Report. But what's their source for this?
I mean how's that going along with Applied Micro top executives stating weeks later that the Titan core and the APM83290 chip based on that core will start generating revenue early next year which means that it must be in volume production already (not to mention their latest product roadmap including "Gemini")?