It's not weird at all. Those cards aren't meant as next buy for owners of non-Super 40xx cards. Cards are compared with cards that potential buyers currently have.
Can that really be true? I figure most people just stick with whatever they have then buy the best thing in their means when the old one gets too slow for their needs. I can't imagine upgrading from 1070 to 2070, in fact right now most people that I know who are considering upgrading are on the 900 series
You're not getting what I'm saying - people stay in the same tier when they upgrade. They might do every generation, every other generation, skip every two generations, but the point is that people who have xx70 (or xx80) will buy xx70 (or xx80) from a newer generation.
10xx to 20xx upgrade made little sense to most gamers because RTX was a thing you turn on, look at pretty reflections and turn off to regain the performance. 10xx generation was a weird generation for NVIDIA and doubt they would make such a consumer friendly generation ever again.