There is a difference between announcement, demoing, and shipping. The OMAP 5 was "announced" at MWC last year, it demoed this year, and won't ship until late 2012 or even early 2013.

But in this case, it's because Nvidia chose to go with the more marketable "quad core" than with a "faster dual core". Also because Nvidia's phone version of chips ships months after the tablet version, on top of the already several months delay of the Tegra 3, which seems to happen all the time with Nvidia lately.

I agree with your sentiment that technology is evolving fast these days, though, and there's little breathing room for technology companies.