I used to work for them, and I agree. It seems confusing from the outside but internally they maintain a pretty consistent system. Many third party partners don't follow this system properly, in my experience.

Really? Other than the iPhone and Apple Watch which do have clear series naming, I find it basically impossible to determine if any particular Apple product name is the latest version or several years old. The iPads especially, and the MacBooks were pretty confusing until recently. The Apple TV and AirPods are also a bit of a mess. I wish they would just do for all of their products what they do for the iPhone, it would make things so much simpler. But even then, the iPhones are not clearly labeled on the products themselves. If someone hands you a random iPhone, it’s impossible to tell what model is unless you have encyclopedic knowledge of the exact differences between all the different iPhones, or you have the unlock passcode and can get into the settings>about menu.