First and foremost... Holy ****, new forums. They're actually usable. Nice.
Now that that's out of the way, I was once a loyal regular of tomshardware, but a few years ago the site and I just got out of sync. I forget exactly when it happened, but one day I read an article it was just flat out wrong. In my eyes, TH sold out or our differing views just became too different. I keep an eye on TH hoping that some day we may agree again. Your benchmarks are much closer to other sites now, but it's articles like this that really break my heart.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but I think it's misguided/flawed and really doesn't provide any useful information for me. To me, the systems build lack a direction or goal other than a price point. The conclusion derived from the benchmarks really doesn't help me decide much of anything.
What I would have liked to have seen:
Expected user profiles - Know who your building a system for, know what their needs are, and make a meaningful conclusion based off of it. Pick some typical users and give them titles. A few examples: the Gamer, the MMOer, the Surfer(aka Mom), the Artist, the Modeler, the Overclocker, the Guy-who-likes-to-flash-his-bling...
Performance goals- Establish minimum acceptable benchmarks before building and testing the systems. This sort of fits in with the profiling idea.
Don't use price points - Aim for general tiers, build the lowest reasonable system you can, then try to up it by just 1. I suspect the build range would be something like $500-700, $800-1000, $1200-1500, $2k+.
Please the fanboys - Try and have a side by side comparison for each tier. Or at least discuss the opposing factions in your build options. Explain the price or performance difference, let the fanboys know what their alligence is costing them.
Factor for the difference of OCing - Talk about the difference at a minimum. Try and compare the differences if you can. Let the overclocker see how much $ he can save, but also show the person who doesn't want the risk/work what the better stock options are.
And with that, I'm late for class.