Yea, it is unfortunate MS ended up screwing the move to protected mode so badly that it took 10 years after its release in 1985 before 32-bit programming became popular. While Intel waiting until 1988 to release the SX didn't help, look up the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco (begin with "MS OS/2 2.0 SDK" and "Microsoft Munchkins") for some pretty horrible history.
Amazing little processor for its time.