Well to be honest, there are a lot of NOOP pins on CPUs, but using them basically means fabbing a new die altogether, which is basically making a whole new CPU altogether.
This is an odd comment. Pins are seriously expensive. Companies don't just throw them in for fun. Usually they're necessary for signal integrity or packaging constraints.
I think this is about semiconductor design and/or die packaging related difficulties/costs. idk exactly why, but "pin count" in this exact expression is not rare at all on chip marketing materials.