How bad is the IntelME problem?

Every machine Intel has shipped from 2007 to present has had this below firmware..below the operating system thing in it.  All Intel CPU’s use the ME to boot at first..then the bios takes over..then the OS. It is too bad it tool this long to come out.  Honestly, I never fully trusted any Intel machines(yes i am on one right now that is “patched”) but unfortunately AMD was never a truly competitive chip for the past 5-8 years.  Now they are and I am building machines around the NON-Pro versions.  I am waiting for their Pro and EPYC chips to be fully vetted by security researchers before building anything with them.