You can’t imagine everyday people hearing advice not to drop hundreds of bucks on Christmas presents that will be obsolete in a month? Because if iPads & iPods were expected in Jan/Feb I can guaranteed a ton of nerds will be looking out for Mom and Dad.
I can't imagine everyday people caring enough about specs to actually make decisions based on said rumors.
The default expectation is that iPads will hit in late March. So we're talking about rumors relating to devices that may exist three to four months after the decision of "what are we getting Sally for Christmas" gets made.
And Gruber thinks average people will hear those rumors and then be willing to disappoint a loved one on Christmas over a spec bump they have no context for?
And, again, I wonder aloud if we have any indication that this happened this year. Because we all heard rumors and those things flew off the shelves anyway. So if it didn't happen this year, why would anyone expect it to happen next year?