This whole fiasco will probably make it better in the long run for the consumer. Defenses are made to be broken, but in the case of nVidia and ATi, they will probably walk the straight and narrow line because of this, because they know they are being watched closely. And we, as consumers will have to keep using 3D Mark, or at least some benchmark as an indicator of what card we buy. We can all say, use real games to benchmark, but that might be subjective to the eye of the beholder, so to speak. And different computer configurations, run differently with the same card. Mine will run Unreal II, with everything maxed out for quality and 1280X960 resolution, and the game runs great. But, I can't get Ghost Recon, which should run easily on my computer, to run evem pm the lowest resolution and settings.
The bottom line is we probably need a yardstick to look at when we buy video cards, unless we are just going to stick to brand loyalty as some do. I think 3D Mark will be a better test now because of all the so called cheating.