If we're using the fence analogy ...
... then it sounds like Intel built an adequate fence to stop you coming in my garden, but you invented a way to use a long tool and take a bit of my garden over to your side of the fence where you can do what you want with it.
Times change and things are so complicated these days that it's impossible to account for every eventuality. I'd guess that there are more hackers with evil intentions dotted around the globe than there are hands-on engineers working at all the chip designers combined, so I'd say they have done a pretty good job to date.
There are always going to be times when vulns like this are discovered. It's not so much 'OMG how could they let this happen?' but more about 'How will they stop it once it's out there and handle the cleanup?'
People are saying things like 'They won't survive this' etc. Of course they will. I agree that most large companies are run by execs and lawyers and I'd normally be on the anti-lawyer side of the fence, but this time I think it's fortunate that they have so much behind them. Plus it affects all the major chip manufacturers so they will all rise and fall together, and everything will bounce back just fine.
In a few days it will be patched, lessons learned will go into future CPU design, this will fade into the past and we all move on.
The only things that will annoy me is if any company takes too long to patch it, or uses it as a way to get people to upgrade their hardware.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
