Thunderbolt cable - what's inside?

As a lover from childhood, learn “what's inside”, I love how to dig a piece of iron in the insides, and absorb other people's reviews.

Another new product from Intel, actively promoted by Apple, is the Thunderbolt interface (in the name of Light Peak) for connecting any peripheral devices. Unheard of hitherto 10 Gb / s speed, multi-connection, bidirectionality and other buns.

Scrolling through the favorite iFixIt, I came across a dissection of the native Apple cable.
And here I fell into a stupor from how this is implemented. Maybe I lagged behind life, but the meaning of such shamanism is not clear to me.



The Thunderbolt cable is pin compatible with the old Mini DisplayPort, however, the old cables with the new interface are not compatible .



For those with a foreign “to you”, there’s a brief sense - on each side of Apple’s proprietary cable, the connector is not simple, but intelligent - in addition to a bunch of matching resistors, there are also five chips, and a processor with firmware is, in general, a rather complicated electronic strapping.




Such a cable costs $ 49 (there, of course). This includes the cost of licensing Thunderbolt technology.
Yes, the Gennum chip, judging by the specifications, provides a fantastic data transfer speed, but ...

Why do so many intermediaries: “Controller on Device 1 -> Controller 1 on the cable -> Cable -> Controller 2 on the cable -> Controller on Device 2 "? After all, each link in the chain reduces reliability in general.

- for the sake of increasing speed? But this could be done directly on the devices, the cost would be cheaper, because the same Gennum could be built into all subsequent devices, i.e. use two of them, not four.
- for the sake of a possible increase in cable length (noise immunity)? Unlikely.
- protection against use on other non-Apple devices? Then the connector will be as unpopular as FireWire, i.e. small market.
- to complicate the copying by the Chinese? It's not for long.
- a completely crazy option - the cost of accessory for the sake of additional profit - but there are simpler ways ...

Your opinion?