> this is a class of attacks which are only relevant to a specific, small class of users

Yes.

> It's irrelevant to users who have intentionally enabled any kind of network communications on their computer

No, there are lots of use-cases at least for LAN communications.

> it's also irrelevant to users who have robust controls on what code is executing on their system, or who run untrusted code in an environment which isolates it from hardware (like a virtual machine).

No, it's relevant in those cases too, as part of a defense in depth strategy.