I bet if Nvidia was launching a few months after AMD, most people would still wait for Nvidia. There would be none of this impatience were are seeing.
If that is the case, that's something AMD has done to themselves.
When I first started in the scene AMD were in a really good spot when the ATI name was still a thing
The 4870/4850 were well recommended, and for people who wanted the best performance got a 4870x2.
The Nvidia 280/285 weren't as highly rated amonst these types of places.
Then when the 5870 launched, it was just sold out all the time at the start, and then they launched the 5850 and AMD were cruising.
Nvidia took ages to launch their 480/470, and while Fermi was objectively better, AMD had a killer product stack.
AMD didn't quite follow it up as well when they launched their delayed 6970/6950 since Nvidia beat them two the punch, they were outperformed but offering better bang for buck.
Their 6850/6870 were decently rated for multi gpu set ups too.
When AMD launched the 7970/7990 these again were killer products, cue the overclocking and even when Nvidia finally launched their later GPU's, AMD were still much lauded.
And then it basically fell apart from there lol, launch after launch and their marketshare has crumbled.