Like Stardock deciding on Shader Model 2.0(!) when every gamer worth his salt got ATLEST Shader Model 3.0! Myself I got a GTX 570 which supports Shader Model 5.0. (Good luck with seeing any SM 5.0 effects for a few years though!)
Oh yeah, that reminds me. Why haven't there been a video by Stardock that shows off Shader Model 4.0 ? (which they said Elemental would support)
Of all the thing Stardock said Elemental would support which it doesn't, the shader model hardly seems worth attention.
What would the game really get out of it anyway? There needs to be a reason to use some of this stuff given how relatively few computers have access to it, and with Elemental's graphics I'm not sure you'd get anything out of it.
The thing I'm liking in Steam's numbers is that 64 bit and multicore are becoming the norm. As we see games taking more advantage of those, we'll see some nice things happening.