1) Among Intel's expressed benefits for a 64-bit mode-only architecture is removing ring 1 and 2, dropping 16-bit addressing support, eliminating ring 3 I/O port accesses and the string port I/O, simplified segmentation model.

- Sounds Reasonable to me given the current erosion of Ring barriers being effective as a security measure.

2) Removing some unused operating system bits.

- Good idea, time to chuck out those burned magic key backdoors aka no longer zero-days.

3) Those wanting to run legacy operating systems or 32-bit x86 software would have to rely on virtualization.

- Again, sounds reasonable given the current speed of processors and the improvements in Virtualization plus the (likely) age of 32-bit software.

Gosh Intel - Wheres the trap?