I don't think anyone's under any illusions that people are going to upgrade more frequently, but the lack of predictability is pissing people off and miscalibrating expectations on what they "should" be getting every gen. Going 10%,40% is literally worse and more disruptive (in the bad way) to consumer psychology than if you'd just gone 20%,25%, because people will lock in on the most desirable possible combinations of perf gains and value offerings/prices.

the x70 tier launched at $349 in 2010 dollars and has bounced between $349 and $399 for every generation, but the one people remember is the singular time it was $329. And the x70 die has almost always fluttered around 250-300 mm2, except for the trailing-node era (when NVIDIA got cheap TSMC/samsung and chased price) where the 2060 was almost as big as a 1080 Ti (445mm2 vs 471mm2) etc. But people have never shut up about how the 4070 isn't a real x70 because it's only 300mm2 etc - they latch onto the one singular time it was bigger etc.

what you end up with in terms of node progress is similar - people tell themselves they deserve the gen when everything increases by 50%, at the best possible efficiency, with a bigger memory bus, but they also want the pricing from the value-focused generations. And they tell themselves that really things are actually advancing 50% per gen (because they see that sometimes/in some segments) and it's just evil corporations not letting them have it.

If, instead, you smooth the progression, so you get 20% then 25% over those same 2 gens, there is no bones made about the actual progress being made etc. Consumers have predictability and information, and they can thus make optimal, informed decisions about which generations they are going to upgrade (which I think everyone agrees at this point isn't "every single generation" for literally anyone anymore).

it's functionally no different in terms of progression, you are getting the same averaged gains year on year. It just means "don't launch the GTX 970 to be some super killer deal, because you have to top it again next year". And if next year you only get 10% over the absolute best sku in the lineup, you failed, your card is shit (or at least "disappointing").

you see this constantly with the 3060 Ti: the 4060 is deemed a failure because it doesn't leapfrog over the 3060 ti (the literal best-value card since RX 480 etc). And the 4060 Ti is a failure because it doesn't leave the 3060 Ti in the dust ("only" 3070 performance, with twice the VRAM). Etc etc. Stop doing that, just make normalized skus with consistent yearly improvement. That's what reviewers are asking for, and tbh they're not entirely wrong on that part (even though their overall performance/cost expectations are just completely bonkers). They're imagining it's going to be 50% a gen, not 20% a gen, but they're not wrong about how the public does need some consistency in their life (like any child) as far as generational gains.

https://youtu.be/QbNwO4HXTIk

The market simply doesn't reward you for making a 3060 Ti or whatever anymore, because that is taken for granted. You can make the same argument about the trailing-node strategy (for 20/30 series) as a whole, which legitimately bent the price curve downwards for consumers. But consumers will never reward you for a price increase you didn't make - in fact they will be extra mad when you finally bounce back to the "normal" cost curve, because now it feels like an extra big increase all at once.

Personally yeah, I'd rather have the god-tier value card and just understand that the successor is going to be feature/performance/efficiency focused and not value-focused. As high-information consumers we can make those decisions and claw back some consumer surplus. But that's not where the public is. And people have been hopping mad about it for years now, this is not an unusual sentiment.

Intel basically exemplified this mindset perfectly: every generation you got X%, and they aligned X% so that they'd get a similar number on every single generation. Going (eg) Sandy Bridge to Skylake is much "lumpier". And people dump on that era, but they also are (functionally) clamoring for that same consistency in the GPU market. "You get 15% a year whether you need it or not".

Right now they don't know what to expect, so they can imagine whatever they want, which only sets things up for disappointment.