Have you seen the Atrix? It's quite amazing, and I truly think it's a glimpse at the future of smartphone technology. AT&T has it, Verizon is stuck with the stripped down version.
I was high on that horse too, but the Bionic is actually an outstanding device.
Just saying, with 1 gig ram and dual-core 1ghz, it's still underpowered for anything more than browsing. As was pointed out, it needs the extra ram for the docking station, so does that cut the ram in half for that web browsing? And without wireless tethering, it can't replace wifi or a data card on a laptop.
Love the Atrix and it's a leap forward, but I suspect the phone I really want is the one AFTER the Atrix. I'd have that and enjoy the novelty for a bit, but very quickly I'd be wanting something more powerful truly capable of replacing a netbook or low-range desktop (i.e. everything but video editing and resource intensive aplications like spreadsheets and powerpoint).
For that matter, the Thunderbolt is actually an excellent device as well. It's not the "latest tech", but there's also nothing out there really to take advantage yet. And if you're not a gamer, I'm not sure you need dual core at this point. Sure, it was overhyped but that thing still flies on LTE with the new snapdragon.
But what has been illustrated is the bar was generally set too low - dual core was indeed possible, and 1gig ram was indeed possible. Not giving us this really has more to do with a continued practice of marginal upgrades rather than not giving us what we want simply because it's not necessary at this point.
The reality is the power-hungry user here wants cutting edge, but from a business perspective there's only so much of that market to go around. Just like the value conscious mass market steers away from more expensive high-end laptops/PC's, it probably wasn't reasonable to expect a slew of cutting-edge phones that would HAVE to be priced higher to drive the same profit margins.
Personally, there is nothing wrong with my rooted OG Droid. I don't need to upgrade after only a year and hadn't planned on it, but I became excited by the potential and possibilities. LTE was driving a big part of that but "underwhelming" devices has really changed the dynamic for me and tempered my enthusiasm.