But as far as I can see, they simply have a (misguided) preference for CISC.

They're very vocal against load/store architectures, and they don't seem to understand the tradeoffs RISC-V does make.

They don't even seem to get that RISC-V has had the highest density in 64bit from the start (first ratified user spec, 2019), and now has highest density among the 32bit too (as of recent Zc ratification).