These holidays sales are tilted towards people that have been on steam for a short period of time, and people who do not keep up with the weekly and weekend sales.
If someone has been on steam for any amount of time, and has been keeping up with the weekly sales, they probably already have everything they want.
The new games people want such as skyrim and far cry 3 are not going to go on deep discount.
I caught skyrim on sale a couple of months ago for $19. During this holiday sale its $29.79.
Are there some good games on sale, yes.
Could the prices be better? Of course they could.