It would have been 2 years since the release of the Jasper chipset in late 2010, the 45nm process will be cheap with good yields and Fusion would have taped out by then. What more do they have to wait for?

They also have some very compelling reasons to release Valhalla or a similar combined CPU+GPU design.

• The Bill of material savings are compelling, test one chip and one package vs 3 chips and 2 packages. Each package costs between $8-14 including testing alone. In addition to this they could finally get rid of that ugly inefficient hunk of metal they call a cooling unit. The problem with yields is that they don't know if a chip is good or bad until they have packaged and tested it, so a bad chip means you throw away everything. Having fewer chips and packages is a massive saving.
• They have to bundle something the size of their PSU into the same box as everything else. If they put the PSU inside the console they then have the space to fit in Natal without having to change their packaging and shipping logistics.
• We saw with the PS3 slim that its important for more than just cost savings. They get to rewrite a lot of public perception of the console with a completely new look and they can finally leave the RROD in the past, I doubt the console will even have that error code. They will want to rewrite the perceptions of the console if they want to reach a different market and console rebuys with profitable hardware is pretty good business, hence the 250GB MW2 bundles etc.

I think you missed the point of what I was saying, Squill.  I'm saying that the hybrid approach is close enough such that an intermediate approach isn't warranted, cost effective, or necessary.  Still, it's not close enough to tell the OP that he/she should hold off on buying a Jasper 360, in hopes of getting a newer model.  It's not gonna happen until the hybrid, I think.  The combo chip is not around the corner, but at the same time, its not too far off, in the grand scheme of things.  

If you're willing to wait, likely more than a year, you should hold off.  Otherwise, you should just buy a Jasper.  That's my point.

My point is that another hardware redesign is quite likely at the end of this year, simply because it makes sense from almost all perspectives.

I say go for it, my 360 is a jasper unit or whatever the latest one is and it works like a charm.