Well, is it really that horrible though?

It [should] cost less than the 8800 GTX and it performs a bit better. The new GT and GTS line should REALLY have been 9800 cards and not 8800 cards, they were based on the new core and a new GTS vs. and old one does show a change. Now the GTX is to the GTS what the Ultra was to the GTX, merely a premium part.
As others have mentioned this is more a marketing thing than anything else. It's a shame nVidia didn't release something that was more of a jump (as the 8 series was over the 7) but considering a $220 graphics card CAN play most games out there on a 24" LCD (hell, my GTS-320mb from a year ago can handle my 24" just fine in everything thus far) I'd say it's still a pretty good market.

With those nVidia slides showing SLI performace (which seem a bit of a stretch / picked the best SLI games) it seems to suggest that nVidia's plan is to release single cards at affordable prices and rather than have one $600 part, suggest the user just get two $300 parts instead. Granted this sort of sucked for communities like this one, but overall it's probably a better plan for nVidia because it means they can provide a solution for far more people.

I'd think tri, and maybe quad sli are more the focus of the enthusiast crowd now. If those slides WERE true, then it would suggest nVidia has been focusing their time & money on SLI drivers rather than pure HW advances which isn't really the worst thing in the world.

just my $.02