I know what you mean, and I didn't intend to veer off topic, either. That was why I posted that link (which links to over a dozen reviews), instead of flooding the thread with walls of text, and charts that aren't relevant to the topic.I'm having hard times trying to understand your point. So far, all you posted proves what I'm saying.
Higher IPC at same clocks, better OC (total clock and % from stock, as your own table reads), less power consumption. I will say more, C2Q have smaller die size too (214 mm² vs 258 mm², no IMC in C2Q tbh). Hell, Phenom II have a die size and power consumption closer to i7 Nehalem, but without the performance.
Phenom II x4 tops at 4ghz OC talking about 24/7 in x64 2x2Gb or more setups, you can see Q9650 over 4,4Ghz.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2819/9
Phenom II was about price, not about tech.
You originally brought up three pillars of futility. I only wanted to clarify that two of the three weren't quite right. Even with the overall performance discrepancy, you could be overlooking the productivity tasks where the AMDs matched, or beat, comparable Intels.
Power Consumption - Five results from the link I posted.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16147/12
http://www.techspot.com/review/137-amd-phenom2-x4-940-920/page13.html
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Enter-The-Dragon-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-940/?page=10
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom-ii-x4_13.html#sect0
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/01/08/amd-phenom-ii-x4-940-and-920-review/13
X4 Overclocking - First five Google results, all on air (including stock cooler).
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/phenom2/980/amd-p2-980oc2.jpg
"On our sample that meant 4.2GHz with the stock cooler. Given enough voltage hitting 4GHz+ on air isn't a problem."
http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=30237
"Here's an overclock at 4263 MHz 100% stable. We boosted Voltage towards 1.575v in the BIOS and simply applied a multiplier of 21 versus a small bus speed increase of 203 MHz. Temperatures are now much higher, but really acceptable. Again, and I can't stress this enough -- we are only using a 35 USD air based Vendetta cooler here, nothing fancy."
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/Phenom_II_X4_980/images/oc.jpg
"The end result was 4.21 GHz, which is about 100 MHz below what Phenom II X4 975 achieved when it was reviewed, but still a nice result for Deneb core. Results vary from sample to sample, but we have seen most C3 Deneb cores pass 4 GHz maximum clock."
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/mac/reviews/amd/phenomIIx4_980/Phenom_II_X4_980_43.jpg
"This is going to sound repetitive for those who have read our previous Phenom II reviews, but were once again were able to achieve a new highest stable Phenom II clock speed. 4254Mhz at 1.45V with enough stability to pass 3 hours of Prime 95 Blend, one hour's worth of LinX, and a few wPrime and SuperPI runs is quite impressive. We were able to squeeze an extra 74Mhz from this chip compared to the X4 975."
http://www.overclockersclub.com/vimages/phenom_2_x4_980/oc.jpg
"For the Phenom II X4 980 I was able to reach a top speed of 4.36GHz which came out to have a multiplier of 20.5x and a reference clock speed of 212MHz at 1.5v."
These aren't magical chips, either. Numerous X4 955/965/970/975s have eclipsed the 4GHz mark. Two of those quotes make note of that. Overall, a large number of 45nm Phenom II/i5 7xx/i7 8xx/i7 9xx tend to fall within the 3.8-4.2GHz range for standard 24/7. One of my systems still houses a 24/7 Q9550 @ 4.2GHz on air. The 4.4GHz C2Q you brought up isn't any more indicative of what most get, than the few Phenom IIs which have also hit that clock. Percentage of overclock headroom doesn't exactly mean much when you arrive at the similar results. Look at how i7 920s top out compared to higher end i7 9XXs, or how the higher stock clocked Intels top out compared to the AMDs (of similar stock frequency).