I think that XFX did the egg design because it still worked fine and was cheaper for them to make so, more profit. Sure, it wasn't as nice to look at but let's be honest, this was long before everyone and their mother had a glass panel on their case with RGB so I never saw the thing anyway.
I've honestly never heard an R9 290 or R9 290X because I had twin HD 7970s (aka R9 280X) back when Crossfire still worked. I had such a great experience with the two HD 4870s that I actually bought both 7970s at once because of the "Never Settle" bundle that came with them. I also got a really good price because AMD was re-branding the HD 7970 as the R9 280X so they chopped the price just because the box said "HD 7970" on it. After that, the next card I bought was the first of my two R9 Furies. The nice thing about loud video cards is that you can always just turn up the sound on the game to drown it out. Having said that, my Sapphire R9 Fury Nitros, despite having a TDP of 275W each, were whisper-quiet. I actually thought that something was wrong with it (like the fans weren't working or something) but the temperature was always really good.
I checked some reviews and found that my particular model was very well known for being extremely quiet despite the 275W TDP. I honestly don't know why Sapphire bothered with making other cooler designs beyond this one because if they can make a cooler that allows a 275W card to run whisper-quiet with great temps, they should just use it on everything. The reduced cost of mass-producing only one cooler design would make them much more cost effective than what they're doing now. It would also eliminate any potential shortages from having multiple designs in play and since the functionality is fantastic, there would be no problems selling it.