Well yeah, the 965 is a waste of money. Which is the CPU they tested. Considering that getting the 920 is 700 dollars cheaper, it would be 800 bucks instead of 1500. Still more expensive, but well worth it in my opinion.
Not to mention socket 775, while still fully active, is on it's way down with the introduction of 1156. On top of that, games in the future will probably start utilizing more cores, which is where the i7 will start to shine.
It's all about building for tomorrow, not building for right this second. Then on top of that, it all depends on your budget anyway. My thinking is if you can afford to build i7, why not? You'll be getting a CPU that wont be knocked down on the performance ladder for ages, and it'll be useful for plenty else besides throwing a bunch of hours into a game.
If you want to argue about any build "being worth it", then why not look at AMD builds with the x3 720? You can build nice rigs for around the same cost, if not cheaper than an E8400 rig, and it overclocks pretty well on it's own.
But hey, to each their own. Just my two cents I suppose.