the way i see it.. gabb is not looking to do a whole system revamp, i'm pretty sure he wants this to be painless and easy, simple taking out a card, and inserting a card
i say you wait it out for just a little bit longer... because early next year, nvidia may "or may not" have a new line of cards... but at least.. from what i understand (but i don't remember where i read) they will be having some price drops
and on the subject of crysis as an example... i would just like to say the benchmark holds no real bear in the actual game. I've found that i do much enjoy my gtx 260 core 192 more than i did my dual 8800gtx setup... the numbers in sheer real life situations just better with the gtx 260... and with the added vmem you're able to apply more anti-aliasing.
and onto the subject of it being a justified purchase... that is all my preference my friend... how bad do you wanna play alot of the games today???? as far as i could remember my old 8800gtx could play everything but crysis just fine... but now we have crysis warhead, farcry 2, call of duty 5, and fallout 3... these my give that card a hard time.
in my opinion if i was you, i would just wait a bit longer... more options should be laid on the table soon enough... more options at the same... if not better prices
one last thing... it is not hard to make a gtx260 perform as a gtx 280 would... soo... i think with that said you should check out gtx280 results and go back to the comparison board