3D overload

There's another reason why graphics card vendors only pay attention to 3D performance... because even with old cards like the Radeon r100 series, 2D performance is limited by memory bandwidth these days, not by GPU speed. Screen updates are pretty much instantaneous as long as the CPU can get the data to the card fast enough. Graphics card vendors are paying attention to 3D because there's nothing left for them to do in the 2D arena.