Large reads tend to require the least CPU of all of the tests that we ran in the post. This is especially true in a 3X replication scenario where reads are serviced by a single OSD like in the 1 TiB/s test. CPU is far more important for small random writes, and also can be important when using erasure coding and/or msgr level encryption.

So the premise that you can only achieve 280MB/s per core is misleading. This cluster wasn't bottlenecked by the CPUs for large reads. Having said that, CPU makes up only a small portion of the overall cost for an NVMe deployment like this. Investing a relatively small amount of money to achieve a higher core to nvme ratio provides a better balance across all workloads and more flexibility when enabling features that consume additional CPU.

This reads to me (and the OP) that you are saying the purpose of this "insanely expensive cluster" was to "show a benchmark."

That's what OP is addressing in his response. No where do you mention anything about performance.