I don't know of anything like the Founder's Edition pricing happening before with GPUs (please correct me if I'm wrong). I think from NVs point of view they took a pretty big gamble with it since if the response was universally negative even amongst the dedicated NV fans that would tarnish their reputation and drive people away. But, as far as I have been able to see, enough people are buying the 1080 and 1070 at FE prices that I can only imagine NV are roundly patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Yes, I've seen discontent about it, but again, if people were overwhelmingly, truly disgusted by FE pricing there would be mass boycotts and the cards wouldn't sell or at least wouldn't sell as well as they appear to be doing.
So, it seems to be confirmed now that FE pricing is perfectly fine. Grab the headlines and the fanboys with '$379 1070!!!!' even though it's practically impossible for anyone to get the card at that price. It's a $379 card, the reviews will praise it as a $379 card and evaluate its performance at that price point even though it's plainly clear the cards are not to be found at that price. I speak for myself only here but that seems very dishonest and paints NV as a company that I don't really want to be doing business with if I can avoid it. And given what AMD are offering, not to mention the G-Sync tax for when I'm shopping for a new monitor, frankly NV are going to have to do an awful lot better if they want a penny out of me in the future. And speaking of the future, the 1060 launch confirms that FE pricing was not just a one off and I can only assume we'll be seeing much more of it. So that means everytime new NV cards are talked about, announced, released etc the big question hanging over it all is what prices the cards are really going to be selling at. I'm already seeing it with the 1060, it seems the skepticism about the '$249' price point is taking root quite firmly and NV may need to tread carefully here. What may be acceptable to buyers of the 1080 and 1070 may not go over as well within the 1060s price segment.
No, this does not mean I'm going to crap on the 1080/70/60 at every opportunity and rail on endlessly about NVs pricing practices. If I think someone is honestly better off with a NV card for their particular situation then I'll recommend that because I want to strive to be objective. That goes the other way as well though, the 960 vs 380 was frankly a shameful display from certain sections of the community since the technical merits of the two cards got completely derailed by the incessant promotion of the 'NV or bust' mentality. Believe me I've seen equally shameful practices from AMD promoters as well and I'll be calling those out when I see them too.
I guess my worry is that if FE pricing becomes accepted that sends a message to companies in general that you have your cake with flashy headlines with the 'MSRP' price and then eat it too with the actual pricing at launch. The 480 isn't available as low as it really needs to be either but at least then we're all clear it's case of high demand relative to supply and/or retailer price gouging (so basically what happened with the 6700K at launch).