No, there is nothing clear about marketing a brand new laptop with a 3-year old CPU alongside a current-gen one under the same name. It's exactly as the parent comment said, they may as well be two completely different models of computer.
I really think you're off base here. Apple list the different models together with their specs (including the generation of the CPU). Are you saying that they have to make them look different because they have different internals? For most users the experience of using any of these models would be exactly the same.
