It seems very obvious they have an internal schedule to keep, hence they had to release Ti at the same time as 2080, it's been 19 months which is almost the same as the previous releases.

The fact that it costs more is because it was never intended to be released at this time, if 2080 had dropped Q1 this year for $700 and 17% performance increase (+ RTX) nobody would have complained, if they then released 2080 Ti Q4 the same year for yet again $700 and 35% higher performance. That is literally what they have done for the past 5 years.

I'm just glad I can skip 2080 altogether, jump straight to 2080 Ti (from 1080 Ti) with massive performance increase (+50% for certain).

The increased price is not really "increased for me", because if 2080 had come out Q1 for $700, I would have gotten that and now this again for $700, that's $1400, but of course I'd sell the 2080 but I'd lose a few hundred $ on the sale, so in the end I'd still have paid upwards of $1000, which is the actual price of the Ti.