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To be clear: actual "PCI-slot"-ish audio cards are now rare. But USB / Thunderbolt (and previously Firewire) external interfaces are a dime a dozen. Serious audio mostly uses them now.

Creative is still marketing them to gamers, amazingly.

Can't say I haven't been tempted.

Pretty common for any hobbiest who wants to record things too.

it's a weird market segment. the inside of a computer is not a great place to put a DAC, due to the EMI from all the other components. an audio enthusiast is going to strongly prefer running optical or USB to an external DAC/amp. a non-enthusiast is likely to be happy with whatever comes with their motherboard. it's hard to imagine a scenario that actually makes sense for a high-end audio card, but I'm sure some people buy them anyway.

Anything with a mic input will work. Audio interfaces over USB are plentiful these days though the discrete PC sound card is pretty rare :(

Microchips are cheap, once initial investment is made. I guess, it only costs ~10¢ for new SoundBlasters at 90nm-130nm.

The price of 10 sound cards will be enough to pay for a whole wafer.