Well...
Sometimes buyers need a little push to focus their thoughts. The old, "shall I write that up for you", can help sometimes. You do have all the information you need to make a decision based on your needs. To many cooks spoil the both as they say, and so I suppose do too many opinions.
These forums are full of amateur salesman, that's whether they're aware of it or not. Sometimes, the subconscious motivation toward influencing a decision is, do as I did, not do as you need to do.
The (of the many) interesting things about polling is, that it can be very biased toward the concept that' "I bought this and I'm right". Which could also mean, "I made this choice, and in spite of the fact I'm not entirely happy with it, so should you". Misery loves company, or so they say.
From what you've said, I still believe that the E8400 is the better choice for you. I also am of the opinion that in a variety of computing situations, the "Quad Core" is more of a selling point than an advantage.
But, that said, I just had my kid buy me an E7300 for Christmas. Know what? Even that's more than I need, the purchase is done and over, I'm going to be happy with it, and I could give a rat's a** how it benchmarks. I guess I'm not really an "computer enthusiast" after all, my bad.
What I won't do however, is try and convince you to buy an E7300.
