Power is over-emphasized in HPC circles. According to FOIA reports (and you can back out similar from public budget information), less than 10% of the budget is going to energy. It is frequently used as an excuse to build machines that are inappropriate for the science (not just "hard to program", but actually inappropriate in the sense that even with infinite programming effort, they deliver less scientific value than a more conventional architecture). There is some value in making scientists uncomfortable so that they think of creative algorithmic solutions that may pay off as the inevitabilities of semiconductor physics become more apparent, but seeing the number of applications that are within small constant factors of proven barriers and the willingness to compromise quality of solution and/or run scientifically irrelevant configurations to demonstrate "speedup", I think it has gone too far.