[kevincox]

This is true, it would take a fantastic cooling system to make burning 180W on your lap comfortable. However that doesn't make a 180W laptop useless. Firstly if you are charging it when not on your lap you may prefer the faster charging and the heat doesn't matter much if it is just sitting on a table. (Plus more than half of the energy is going into the batter rather than being expelled as heat). Secondly if you are at a desk then it is nice to have the ability to do demanding tasks, even if a lot of your use is well under 180W having the ability to set it down and crunch some data (like letting a video render for a few hours unattended or playing a game with keyboard and mouse) is very useful. Thirdly short bursts of 180W isn't uncomfortable, so it can be useful to have this capacity even if your average is well under 180W.

I would hope that the power management settings have options to limit the power usage/heat output that can be enabled when using it on your lap.

TL;DR yes, burning a constant 180W on your lap isn't good, but having this capability adds many valuable use cases.

[vorpalhex]

Total peak power envelope does not mean it is all being dumped into core components.

If your processor only maxes up to 40w, it doesn't matter if the laptop supplies 200w or 1000w. It won't run any hotter.