Just jumping in...
I agree, performance tiers don’t hold the same relevance anymore. Not with all the skimping, wider artificial segmentation, bus and compression manipulation, diminishing/locking features, etc and not forgetting S, TI, TIS, GRE, XT, XTX variations disrupting the once measurable landscape. Nowadays GPU manufacturers are not afraid of becoming more transparent in how cleverly they manipulate performance tiers. Evidently theres a big surge in prioritising profits with equal weight in disregarding the much desired 'balanced segmentation', all to drive purchasing decisions.
Since Maxwell, I haven’t settled for anything below the 80-class - thats a solid 10 years as an "80s pup" with the 3080 being my last. But going forward, looks like I’ll be downgrading to the 70-class (or anything similar around the $800-mark). I just can't come to terms with spending over $1000 on a GPU for a 1440p desktop setup - it's obscene!