VZW killed the Fascinate. Hardware-wise, it is a superior phone. Get it rooted and take the crapware out of it and you won't notice a thing.
The Hummingbird processor kills the Crapdragon. Qualcomm's response to this is coming out later this year or early next year in the form of a dual-core 1.5 and a 1.2. That's far too late. We'll see the ARM v8 by then and it'll rip the DC Snapdragon a new one again.
The Snapdragon is 5% faster than any Cortex A8 (Hummingbird, OMAP) clock for clock. So what hurts Snapdragon? Being the first 1ghz on the market, it was using the older 65nm process, which means worse battery life than the newer 45nm designs. Also, Qualcomm, in a cost-savings move, bundled their chip with the Adreno GPU, which while adequate, isn't nearly on par with the PowerVR SGX 530 (OMAP) or 540 (Hummingbird). But for general purpose usage, especially amongst non-power users, there won't be a noticeable difference.
Also, ARMv8 is a long ways off. ARMv7 is still relatively new. We've seen it used very well in Scorpion (Snapdragon) and Cortex A8 (Hummingbird, OMAP 3). Next up is Cortex A9, which is an optimized version slated to be used in OMAP4, Orion (Samsung), and Tegra 2, among others. A9 and its derivatives are still based off ARMv7.
Also, Qualcomm has caught up again. Their 1.3ghz single-core and 1.2ghz dual-core Snapdragons launching in phones over the next 6-9 months are 45nm, and are paired with the Adreno 205, a chipset comparable to the SGX 535. The higher clockrates that the dual-core SD will be faster than the similarly released OMAP 4430 (which is 720mhz-1ghz, but 15=20% faster clock for clock). OMAP should offer slightly better battery life and slightly worse performance, with a slightly better GPU.
By the time Orion and OMAP 4440 are out in the 2nd half of 2011, Snapdragon's dual-core will be at 1.5ghz using an Adreno 220. Once again, compared to OMAP, we'll see worse battery life, better performance, and this time, a comparable GPU.
Orion is the wild card. Rumor has it that it will be the first 1.5ghz A9, and use the new SGX 545 GPU. If so, it will be the best performer of the trio, even besting the Tegra 2 in general computing (though likely still behind Tegra 2 in GPU).
Call it the "Crapdragon" all you want. That's the problem with being first to market, you eventually get outclassed. By Christmas, any 1ghz Snapdragon or OMAP3 should be considered mid-range as the new beasts arrive. This isn't new, as technology is constantly superseded by something better. Now, if OMAP3 1ghz and Hummingbird had been in shipping phones at the same time Snapdragon hit its stride, then yes, I'd have called Snapdragon a waste. However, Qualcomm got a good 6-9 months as king of the hill, letting them ship in a ton of consumer products. That's a huge win anyway you look at it.
