Re: Non-timing side channels?
There are plenty of applications that need high-precision timers: media synchronisation, in-process threading, etc. Taking them away from applications isn't really an option - though if you did, you'd also have to "fuzz" the lower-resolution timers because otherwise an application can simply execute, say, increment instructions to pad out the longer period and use the resulting number to work out how long the rest of the operation took.
The point of the processor is to run non-privileged, end-user applications. The operating system is just there to get multiple processes to play nicely together - it's not a repository for application code that processor bugs make unsafe to run.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
