First line in my reply was
You went with...
I'm not finding excuses, I'm saying avoid the FE, but your points for avoiding the FE indicate some ignorance on the subject matter.
It wasn't that long ago that the 5970 was fed by a three phase VRM. A high end card. It doesn't itself indicate cheapness, there are different ways to skin a pig. If your concern is voltage regulation and overclocking and stability - have we seen any issues with these things yet? If not, maybe wait until we do to make this claim?
You skipped over the 192 bit interface = 3GB or 6GB part I see, and like I suggested it could indicate the board will be reused for another GPU and it's just economies of scale at work, again, nothing new for any GPU maker.
Even if they did cut it down in response to the RX 480s price, isn't it still end performance per dollar that matters?
Wait for reviews, by all means, and avoid the FE like the greedy money grabs they are, but some RAM pads or the number or VRMs in a vacuum are silly reasons to avoid the card.