I agree it is time for more refinement in those areas to both help power consumption and heat dissipation.
The odd board arrangements hinder that.
why so many power connectors?
Why not, its just a test board and there's plenty of board space. For the retail boards you just don't dont drop PCI-E connectors through and leave them as empty connections.
I personally would have preferred the chips to be centralised and squashed together more so we could have used standardised PC heatsinks cooling all 4 chips. 350W can be done with one higher end air heatsink or basic 120mm watercooling. I think its time we moved away from these strange aluminium blocks with obscene fans to make up for the low surface areas.