I'm pretty much the same as OP. I almost always buy the K version of the processor, but never intend to overclock. I just figure I want the theoretical ability to, and the more volume they have on those SKUs the less likely they are to take it away entirely.
That or I'm just rewarding shitty corporate product segmentation behavior. I never can quite decide.
I do agree over the recent years getting a "boring" higher-end configuration is getting more and more difficult.
Yes, the overclockable chips are better-binned/faster chips even without enabling overclocking. (Unless you're talking about X3D chips, which have most overclocking features turned off due to thermal limitations of stacked cache.)
I bought a Ryzen 2600X with no intention of overclocking it, because it had a higher boost clock than a 2600 and it was on sale for almost the same price. I would guess similar lines of reasoning apply to K-SKU intel buyers.
Similarly I get them because that's what Microcenter includes in their motherboard/cpu/ram combos. Still cheaper than getting the non-K version with everything else individually.
That or I'm just rewarding shitty corporate product segmentation behavior. I never can quite decide.
I do agree over the recent years getting a "boring" higher-end configuration is getting more and more difficult.