I know it's not a "problem" but I wonder why they didn't just went with some actual high power connector instead of just adding pins over and over again. XT60 have been well tested in RC industry and it's 720W sustained and 3x that in peak. Just add sense connector and you're done
Computer power supplies have (usually) multiple rails, which are multiple voltage regulator circuits outputting the same voltage. You wouldn't be able to do that with two wires. Also, I think the connector needs to be larger to distribute load, and the ATX style pin connectors are already used and no one wants to add a completely new connector type on their assembly line.
The current connector 12VHPWR connector already joins all the wires together on GPU end of connector. So multiple PSU power rails isn't an argument why they couldn't have used two beefier wires and connector.
Why even sense connector?
Like, what's that aspect needed for, here? I understand it for the lower-voltage rails, but the 12V GPU bulk power supply shouldn't need remote sensing, just mandate appropriate limits on voltage drop and rate cable resistance in a way that DIY builders can test their parts (not like we need high accuracy here, just need to 4-wire measure resistance to like +-10%).
But to answer your question on "why adding pins": electrical regulations regarding fire risks eschew PSUs that don't trip over current protection when you hit like 20-ish A on a single output, due to the risk of starting a fire if you were to dump that much power into a small place and happen to have enough resistance in that "short" to not trip the over current protection.
That's why GPUs feed multiple power rails from the PSU and control themselves to balance their draw across their input rails to not overload any single input.
And IMO as long as we let people build computers in cases that won't protect the room/building from e.g. a broken capacitor on the GPU's 12V side drawing 600W until the GPU is burnt to a crisp and the case fan has blown the flames out the back against the e.g. wooden shelf on/near the desk, we maybe should keep up the regulations that such fire-non-containing cases can't use PSUs where individual power rails willingly deliver enough power for an electrical fire to escape the case.
