There is no Messiah for AMD, There's no second coming of K8_Christ and his 12GB/s Hypertransport Apostles.
Fanboys on either side need to understand something. It has been tradition in EVERY respective PC market for two main competitors to each have there time in the limelight. Each competitor works to outdo the other.
Here's a brief history of the past few architectures.
K6-2
PIII
Athlon (K7)
P4 Willamette
Athlon XP
P4 Northwood "C"
Athlon64 (K8)
Core Duo 2
Each are successive product launches that significantly defeated the others product.
Fanboys will claim on either side that there preffered company has never lost the performance crown. Especially AMD Fanboys who still, to this day, believe the AthlonXP to be better then the Pentium 4C (which is untrue).
Core Duo 2 will reign supreme for some time. It's too bloody efficient for AMD to counter without one of these two:
a) revamped architecture (K8L)
b) higher clock speed
Too bad for AMD that the K8's architecture doesn't clock all too well (due to Intel's better FAB's and process technology).
So the King is Dead (K8) Long Live the King (Core Duo 2). By 2008, AMD will most likely re-claim the throne..
As for Reverse Hyperthreading, my gut instinct tells me Intel will be the first to release a product supporting Reverse Hyperthreading.