Looking at patents tells you very little, far less than what is required to do an educated guess on what AMD's next uarch is going to look like. Companies patent like crazy, even if they will probably never use half of those patents. If you can, why not ? Just in case....
I'm pretty sure we can look at thousands of Intel/IBM patents from the '80s and build in our imagination a top notch uarch for the 21th century. Which is, with all due respect, what Dresdenboy did : looked over hundreds/thousands of patents and picked what he considered would make a great uarch. Somebody's wishes aren't necessarily what AMD will produce.

And btw Sandy Bridge has been redone twice if IIRC. You can imagine how high Intel aims after Nehalem.