I'd have to agree; if your main concern is gaming, you still can't beat the Audigy or Audigy 2. Positional sound is going to be far superior with an Audigy/2 with a surround set-up but is also excellent if you use headphones. The improvements of the A2 over the original (I never owned the original) seem to be centered around sound quality, clarity and reproduction in the areas of weakness exhibited by the original. The Audigy 2 has bridged many of the gaps which have constantly been a knock on Creative products when compared to prosumer/audiophile cards.
The nForce2 onboard is the best integrated solution I've used or know of. Its pretty close to the A2 in music and movies (when not using s/pdif passthrough), however, EAX HD gives the A2 the edge when it comes to games and upmixed surround from a stereo or analog source. The only area where I would give SoundStorm a clear advantage over the A2 is with LFE separation, clarity, and volume.
The SoundStorm drivers have improved since the nForce2's initial release (at least on my board), and are all but mature at this point. There were some fixes and feature implementation required through driver updates, and some people still seem to have software/driver problems on boards that don't have dedicated analog outputs for 5.1 (using mic or line in as the 3rd output). The Audigy 2 drivers have been flawless since I installed it back in November. There have been 2 major driver updates, but they only fixed minor .dll issues that did not in any way affect the stability or performance of the card. Creative drivers have advanced considerably, which is why its unfortunate many have sworn off Creative b/c of past driver issues. If you have access to both, definitely give them both a try and see which one suits your needs the best.
Chiz