I'm looking for a SSD myself.
Does OCZ make good drives? I do like Samsung better, but their warranty is not what I would have expected. They replace your broken drive with a recertified one. What do you guys suggest? (120gb-128gb). 
OCZ has some good drives, but most are crap. Samsung's 830 series is excellent. And yes, everyone replaces your broken one with a re-certified.
Actually, the problem with single core performance seems to be caused by the chips reaching physical performance limits. I don't think it'll drop, but it certainly isn't gonna get much higher in the coming years. And yeah, 10 years is much too long. On a computer from 2002 you'd most likely do better just playing retail at max settings.
Almost every single desktop CPU on the market is capable of a 25% or higher performance boost from what is sold now. The limits are cooling, and people crying about power efficiency, not chip design. It's called Overclocking, and it's a real thing. All Intel "bridge" CPUs (Sandy and Ivy Bridge) and all AMD BD-based CPUs (Bulldozer, Trinity, Piledriver) are fully capable of 4.5Ghz with ease, many reaching 5Ghz, yet the highest stock-clocked CPU either of them sell is 4Ghz, and that's only a few chips, most being around 3.3 to 3.5Ghz.
This is all on reasonable cooling too, you do not need Phase, Chilled, DICE or LN2 to reach that, just an H60 or Antec 620 if your aim is 4.5. Heck, some Intel and AMD CPUs sell with AIO water coolers much like the H60 in the box.
Also, both sides of the fence are aiming at improving performance per watt, not just performance, because people want longer battery life in their laptops not performance they won't see. As it stands, CPUs have gotten "good enough" so Intel and AMD do not need to increase performance by 20% each year. A small boost and 10% more battery is "good enough" for them.
Intel has been holding a 5-10% increase in IPC every year while keeping their clock speed about the same. AMD just pulled a 7% IPC increase with PD, but comparing BD back any farther wouldn't help because of the massive design difference. Both next-gen CPUs are rumored to have the same increase again next year. They also pull this off while dropping power usage by a significant margin.
Yeah, this is why I usually recommend light overclocking to people building new PCs, or at least to consider building in the capability. The CPU manufacturers don't seem to realize that yes, more cores are nice, but older programs that were already maxing a single core are going to suffer from lower overall clock speeds. It's especially noticeable in games with lots of physics calculations, furball missions in FS2 being one example. SoaSE in long games is another that comes to mind (fecking trade ships!).
Thankfully, even relatively inexpensive CPUs overclock like champs, and whatever else may be said about the UEFI BIOS'es, it makes the process a lot less intimidating for people that have never done it before.
Solid-state drives are getting less expensive and more reliable, CPUs are excellent these days, main storage drives are massive and cheap, power supplies are getting more efficient...it's a great time to be a PC enthusiast. 
They realize it just fine. Thing is, most people don't care.
OCing can shoot power usage through the roof. Well beyond limitations set by the FCC or whoever handles those things. A FX-8350 at it's stock speed is already in the 125w segment. Care to guess where it would be if AMD decided to sell one as 4.8Ghz, which many of them achieve easily? A lot more then a 20% performance increase is worth. Especially for people who will not see any difference and just complain about the power bill.
Not that I'm against OCing mind you. I have my FX-8320 at 5Ghz right now. That 43% boost is very nice. But it's also not something that your average user will see. People who do need that kind of speed will buy it, or they will do what we do.