It seems like you don't like nVidia's strategy, I much rather have the second place card run really really close to the top end, than have a gulf of a performance difference like the 7950 to 7970. While that may seem stupid on nVidia's part, its really great for us. Besides, if someone has the $$ to spend on a higher end one, let them. It's always an option. This reminds me of how close the Geforce 6800 GT performed to the Geforce 6800 Ultra and had a huge $100 difference..funny how history repeats itself :_)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1383/13
If the Radeon 7950 ran as close to the 7970 as the GTX670 runs to the GTX680, I would have upgraded my Graphics card months ago. AMD really shouldn't have cut BOTH the cards ROPs AND the clockspeed...In my opinion, the 7950 should have just been a downclocked 7970...and introduced what we have now as the 7950,as the 7930 later on.