Which is why Windows NT was multiplatform in 1993.
Developed on Intel i860, then MIPS, and only then on x86, alongside Alpha.
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Big endian MIPS, no less! At least initially.
I don't think the i860 port lasted very long. IIRC, the performance in context switches was atrocious.
It didn't make it to release, and I believe MS switched internal development more or less as soon as it had an alternative. I do not recall reading any specific detailed look into why, so you may well be right!
Intel let the i860 and indeed the slightly older i960 wither, which was a damned shame. Ditto the Alpha it ended up with, while it sold its Arm licence to Marvell, which at one point recently was worth more than Intel.
I'd like to see a skunkworks project to resurrect one, or several, of these. :-) Attack Arm from a direction it's not expecting. And RISC-V come to that.