> simpler boards like a micro-itx

Is "micro-itx" a hybrid between micro-ATX and mini-ITX? ;-)

> a PCIe plug-in board, tablets like you mentioned

Okay.

> other processors (outside of the likely Qorlq components).

A-Eon was established to provide hardware for OS4, which is an OS running on Power Architecture. I don't think there's currently any better choice than using QorIQ chips for that.

> the e6500 looks less likely now with the lowered clock speeds

Comment regarding Trevor's AmiWest 2012 presentation:

"They were talking about the brilliant future with ppc dual core e6500"
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36670&forum=16&start=100#685249

(...with "core" meaning "thread" here obviously). So I still think A-Eon eventually aim for the e6500 core, but as the PA6T chip will not be available for much longer and the chips with e6500 cores have just started sampling, they desperately need(ed) the chips with e5500 cores as an interim solution to be able to start development of new hardware just after Nemo v2.1 was finalized. I wrote about that there:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=817