It's not emulating a crippled chip, it runs on the i486SX (which has no FPU, by artificial limitation or not), and emulates an x87 FPU.
"Initial reviews of the i486SX chip were generally poor among technology publications and the buying public, who deemed it an example of crippleware." [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/486sx
EDIT: I get your point but this is what OP was referring to