I dont know if abuse is the word I would use. I think it was kind of nice that they didnt price Core2s relative to AMDs line and come out with EE6800 in the $1500 range. That would have been a fair price in terms or relative performance. Then again, AMD made the price cut just before Core 2 hit the streets.
For now, it seems to make sense (at least putting myself in their shoes)not to dump C2Q on the market so low that they have to cut C2D prices.
And $1200 (75% over EE6800s current $910) for a rumoured 80% performance increase, well, its not great, but it could have been worse. All this assumes $1200 will be the actual price.
Hell, E6600 is $311 while X25000 is $499 and FX62 is $672. By all rights, Intel should be asking $700ish for E6600 based on relative performance. Other than the fact I would like both Intel and AMD to begin deliveries of their flagship CPUs to me and pay me $2500 per CPU to accept delivery, I cant complain too much