Yeah, while it is annoying, I know there is a whole art form to those thumbnail images and there are other people I respect that are worse about them. I think they’ve talked pretty openly about how those are simply the annoying part of being in the YouTube business and if they didn’t, they would just be leaving views on the table.
It’s smart. Also, developers have a solid benchmark to set their games to. Console has long had the benefit of a stable hardware set over the course of many years, which makes it easier to develop to the broadest possible market. Skipping incremental APU updates has a benefit of keeping a longer benchmark for game developers hoping to boost sales by targeting the market with handhelds. Valve was pretty clear in their communication in this regard, which is great.