In regards to the performance increase....I think if a company came out with a new version of a product and didn't upgrade the performance (when they could), it would be met with unhappiness.

Imagine if Swiftech came out with an MCW65 with the same base as the current one, I think a lot of people would whine about it, regardless of the other aspects/improvements of the block. If D-tek came out with a Fuzion GFX 3 with zero performance improvements, people would yawn about it and complain "what's the point?".

That said, I'm not sure if we want a metal topped 2 slot GPU block. What if it touches an adjacent PCI/PCIe card? One fried card, coming right up!