Sam, pasting all of your line doesnt make any difference.Because AMD plans to BEAT nvidias 580 with antilles (6990), not with 6950/6970.And that was a plan for, like a year.And still is.So i dont get your point.And really ,increasing vram size wont help 6970 at all.
I`m a good boy so i quote the whole line now ;-)
Lets hope the "new" plan for 6990 will work, because the "That was AMDs plan all along", as you put it didn't work and they had to delay it a few months, you know.
Plan is not new, and they did not delay it a few months, one month.Not sure if it was even a whole one.

But lets cut the the OT and keep it to these 1GB cards. My objection is, if they could somehow, I dunno how, offer more performance and challenge the 580, then it would result in a good price-cut in high-end segment. In this form, they can't trigger a price-cut where it matters, at the top.
Again, thats ,at least in theory if nothing goes horribly worng ,a job for 6990. As in 570 ,it has competition in the form of 6950/6970.
Specially interesting will be the 6950 1GB cards, CFX scaling is pure win with this generation, i feel kind fo tempted to sell of my 6850 and go that route.