i think the market is in a bag of hurt, and prices have dropped accordingly. when you go from a strong market, to a hurt market, you end up with a large surplus of whatever you were selling. which, DOES need to be unloaded quickly (at discount) because this creates a supply and demand that, well, isnt going to be making to premium dollar. when youve sold your surplus (and slowed your manufacturing) supply dwindles away and demand raises again.
i dont think you will ever see a quality quadcore+ for 200 dollars again, in your whole life.
granted, 6 cores is around the corner, but considering i can barely find any software to take advantage of more than 2 cores, im really not too concerned with having more than 4.