No it does eventually translate into better performance as we have seen ever since GCN has been around. AMD cards always seem to start off behind there Nvidia counter parts and catch up and then overtake. In my opinion it comes down to more powerful hardware that is underutilized to start with that over time gets used better through developers getting more and more out of it along with AMD getting more through drivers. The pattern is there to see and it's where the fine wine concept comes from. Nvidia seem to be near the limit on release which is a good thing but if you are like me who keeps cards long i trust that the AMD card is the better buy as they are usually cheaper and stay relevent longer.
I've just had a look at VII reviews which include the GTX1080/V64 (You'd hope with current results)
I'd say my V64 still trades blows with the GTX1080 exactly the same at launch.
Is a Fury X now a 980Ti killer? Fury X seemed to die an absolute death and is basically never heard about, yet it's later GCN that the former cards I've mentioned.
Sure, we can say that AMD might gain more percentage over time. But I'd certainly say finewine's a rather overhyped concept.
I think the "finewine" lark is really only a thing for the R9 290/R9 290X/390X/390 and when the 7970 surged ahead of the GTX680, whereas at launch they traded blows. Albeit some of this was done with a soft relaunch of the card.
It could also be of course that Nvidia just drop their support sooner and don't bother optimizing the drivers for newer games on their older GPU's. Which is obviously terrible. But I'd say that's more Nvidia cards becoming "rotten milk" rather than AMD being "fine wine". Although AMD can be commended for their support.
Of course there's always games that are the exception. But that's called cherry picking.