There's more than a bit of revisionism here. AMD created superior products, at their ultimate 64 bit CPUs with integrated memory controllers and point to point links to interconnect them, basically owned the server field while Intel was off on it's Pentium 4 "marchitecture" wild goose chase (a marketing architecture based on pure clock speed, which they failed to achieve to the level needed), more weird memory schemes, etc. etc. ... and then rested on their laurels for too long while distracting themselves with things like the ATI acquisition, giving Intel a chance to catch up.
You can't afford that with a competitor like Intel.
Until I stopped trusting x86 processors (100% rk3x88 here), I used AMD religiously, even though the clock speeds were slower. I still use them in PC's I build for end-users that want x86, though I use the RDRAND patch from lkml when I do, to compensate for the broken RNG. As long as the board doesn't do stupid default voltage values (looking at you, Asus), they never give me a single problem.
You can't afford that with a competitor like Intel.