I've been lurking on this thread for more months than I can remember as well. Was about to go for an RX 580 when it comes out this month - glad I waited!
Regarding the delay in drivers, considering how close the timing was, maybe they had an agreement with Apple to wait until after the new Mac Pro announcement. Maybe Apple thought if pascal drivers had been available, more pro users would have just built a hackintosh or even assumed a new Mac Pro was in the works and held off buying the trash can model? If the drivers are coming out next week then they must have been in the works for a while now, with help from Apple.
I love some of the theories that get posted
Not sure about this one though. The hackintosh community is just not big enough for Apple to have any concern about. If they did they could shut down a community like this or engineer their software to make it pretty much impossible to do what we do.
I also think it is unlikely they are selling many Mac Pro's right now. Its very dated as we all know, and how many peeps genuinely would want to spend that many $$$ on such a machine? Schiller already aluded to the fact that pro users have been using and switching to iMacs. Delaying the drivers until the new pro was announced ? I just think its unlikely.
Given the time frame for the Mac Pro, Apple have clearly only just started work on it, so it only came onto their roadmap quite recently. Though even with that, Im surprised it is still going to take so long. Most of the technology we are likely to see used in it has already been used by Apple; TB3, the newer USB stuff etc. With the resources and design team at Apple's disposal, how long can it take to design a new chassis/form, modular or not.
Giving a nod to nVidia AFTER the decision to revamp the Mac Pro and iMac makes more sense I think. Apple know with renewed nVidia support including pascal, that it would very quickly get the attention of both the pro and home users. Apple dont want to lose those pro users. Not only could that result in ceding users over to MS, it could also lose the support from business. If that happened, Apple would be left in the position of serving nothing higher than pro-sumers. Whilst that is a highly profitable sector (For Apple at least), it could have a knock on effect for the likes of government, education, carplay, health & medical, planned AR etc in Apple's long term roadmap. Government & business is too important for Apple to lose. Tossing out a new Mac Pro every couple of years (Whether profitable or not) is childs play to Apple and shows at least a degree of commitment. What they potentially stand to lose if they dont is far bigger I reckon.
Whatever the reason though, we as a community can only gain from the announcements