This really puzzles me... how on earth can nVidia have gone through all the birthing pains of the 200 series 40nm cards and not learnt anything from it and then start all over again with a design even less suited to the problematic process they had to deal with.

Fermi are good cards, the only reason people are put off is mainly the price. The temperature and power issues are all solved by either better cooling be it from the end users or a company customising the card itself and most end users buy a good PSU for their system anyway when they are even considering a top level graphics card.
If the 480 was £310 people would be dragging ATI's name through the mud
Power issues are not easy to fix, nor is cooling. Unless you suggest the cards should come with WC as stock?
Oh, and if 480 was £310, ATi would slash 5870 prices and still make a profit