You're completely delusional. They absolutely aren't worth it, especially as the 41x series, as I say, are often slower than the preceding 40x series and have huge problems. There's a reason why Qualcomm have almost completely lost the low end in a very short frame of time. Performance, features, price and reliability are TERRIBLE. You're correct that they're not on par with QC on performance .. they significantly exceed their performance.

The 61x series have problems too, and using 61x would make the Sailfish phone by far Intex's most expensive (and likely lowest margin) phone. Why on earth would they do that? Also, given the minimum order numbers from their Chinese or Taiwanese OEM, why the hell would they risk it when there won't be an Android analogue? 8xx isn't even a consideration, and again you could get something just as fast or faster for half the price from MTK.

Why do you think they've gone from a minority Qualcomm shop (10-15% of their phones) to seemingly none?

Ubuntu Touch phones don't seem to have an issue working with MTK, and the full source for those phones are available (unlike 'open' Jolla) ... and available online - again unlike Jolla. If Jolla are adapting MTK hardware, they'd be wise to inspect what Canonical / bQ / Meizu have done.

It would be madness if it did. Their phone needs to be a direct analogue to an Android sister phone, per Ubuntu Touch's 2 bQs and 1 Meizu. There's considerable risk for no reward, doing something custom for Sailfish.

Also, the battery's shite and low capacity, and outside of Dirk there's been practically no support for ToH. Furthermore, why on earth would they support either? There've been very low sales of the Jolla Phone, and there are very few active users ... why do something costly and risky to at best please a hard core of a couple of hundred people who demand ToH (and battery? really?) compatibility?