didnt you also see the 400s have worse efficiency than the 200s in practically every way for gaming? its only because they were on a new node that it was better than before. if they shrunk the 200 series onto 40nm it would have been like a 460 from the start, without the same yield issues, and 6 months earlier.

an architecture change that offers a atlesat 20% better perf per mm2, and 10-20% better perf per watt, is a very good upgrade. you seem to be stuck on the naming or the price, both of which have zero to do with the architecture and everything to do with simple management choices set for certain reasons they decided on.