Yes, they should be optimizing for the API (OGL or DX) instead of specific programs. But they won't do it when there's an opportunity to make their hardware look faster in a specific application.
ATi did it before with 3DMark2001 (http://www.legion88.org). And many of us still remember ATi's Quake 3 benchmark scandal (i.e. "Quack"). ATi didn't actually suffer anything from that even though people found out about it. I guess NVIDIA thought they could have gotten away with it, too.
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Yes, they should be optimizing for the API (OGL or DX) instead of specific programs. But they won't do it when there's an opportunity to make their hardware look faster in a specific application. ATi did it before with 3DMark2001 (http://www.legion88.org). And many of us still remember ATi's Quake 3 benchmark scandal (i.e. "Quack"). ATi didn't actually suffer anything from that even though people found out about it. I guess NVIDIA thought they could have gotten away with it, too.