Well, over one month since the last post to this thread. A few significant changes to the GTX260/280 situation. They can now be had for a much better price, the card I have now, the EVGA GTX280 vanilla is currently on sale at NCIX for $454.99. That's over $200 less than the intro price. Yes, we can thank AMD/ATI for that, as they say, competition is good.
SKYMTL, as always, a teriffic review

As you are probably aware, Thermalright is soon releasing their HR-03GTX heatsink for the GTX260/280 series. When I e-mailed their support a few weeks ago, they said it would be out in early August. I would like to see some tests with this heatsink on a 280, I will certainly be buying one as soon as they become available from NCIX.
Getting back to prices, I stepped-up to a 280 three weeks ago from my GX2. It was about 50 bucks to do so, not including shipping, so I went for it. Now I hear EVGA will be sending me a refund for that amount as the price drop happend just before they shipped out my 280. EVGA deserves a big thanks from me for that, as well as their prompt handling of the step-up.
As for the 280, I am very pleased with it, no overheating issues or other problems. As in your review, I have had very good overclocking results. Even at stock speeds, it performs great in Crysis compared to the GX2, not just the framerates, but a huge difference in smoothness. That also goes for the less demanding games of course, COD4, Bioshock, R6 Vegas 2, etc. it has even smoothed out a few rough spots in San Andreas!
Currently running the beta 177.70 driver without any problems.
Would be good to see some updates to your early review of the 280 now that it has been out for a while. Looking forward to seeing how well the HR-03GTX works on these cards, for those of us without radiators and waterblocks