I agree on the "value" perspective you mention
Good. Yes, a value proposition test is very worthwhile.
but I disagree that for "gaming", the VCache siblings don't offer a valuable extra oomph.
I never said VCache doesn't offer an "extra oomph" in gaming. Obviously it does. How "valuable" it is to justify the $200+ extra is the question, hence the value proposition test: "gaming" CPU + GPU, or normal 6-core CPU + higher-tier GPU.
CPU and GPU are the two most expensive components in a PC build, and unless you have unlimited money to buy a 4090 + "best" gaming CPU, which most people don't, then you will always have to juggle your budget and decide where your money would be best spent, more CPU and less GPU, or vice versa. This is very real-life question that most face, and a test to determine that would help many people.
some people don't need or want "MOAR FPSSSSS" all the time: they want consistency (A.K.A: good/high 1% lows).
If consistency is what you're after, then a X3D CPU isn't the answer, as it only offers a boost to some games and not all, and the variance of boost is high, making your PC gaming performance much more inconsistent.
The benchmarks we have thus far are all distorted (running 4090 @ 1080p) to remove GPU as a bottleneck. But in real-life, GPU is always a bottleneck because most of us don't have a flagship GPU, or run it at 1080p. The real-life value proposition of a "gaming" CPU is thus much smaller than what the benchmarks indicate.
The main point is that according to AMD 7950x3d is about 3% faster than 7800x3d. Wel have all 7950x3d data we need. Take away that 3% and we have 7800x3d!
This is non-news. We don't need "experts" to tell us 7950X3D has neglible improvement over 7800X3D, because gaming doesn't need 16-cores. It's why the 7600X is a better choice for gaming than the 7950X. In fact, gamers have cried for AMD to do a 7600X3D, but that didn't happen, since AMD wants fatter profits, not more "value" to gamers. Hence, we get white elephants like 7950X3D and 7900X3D.