Hey, wait a minute. I see Santa Barbar CA up there, Dude, shouldn't you be over the "Cheers" stuff by now??????
Yeah, a good rant is good for the soul now and again, ain't it? By the way, go back far enough and I think I'm of "European Origin" as well .....

As to the speed differential, here is a link to the
SD Card Spec where it shows how much simpler the interface is than CF, and that as noted above it is a serial interface. If you examine the charts on the Galbraith site, you will also note the same speed difference in cameras other than Nikon, so unless Nikon influenced Canon, I don't think you can blame this one on Nikon. What may occur, however, is that the D7100 has actually implemented the newer variant of UHS-1, or maybe it now is UHS-II, I'm too lazy to keep up. Bottom line is that between Nikon, SanDisk and the rest of the industry, the "next new thing out" will have something "better" than that old one of 2 months ago.
As to which camera to use for what, I agree with you that the D7100 will not replace my D800, in fact it won't replace my V1 either, I think all three complement each other. The D7100 did, however, replace my D600. What seems a bit bizarre even to me is that as Randy, the D7100 will become my main "way over there little birdy" camera, with the D800+80-400 AFS VR as my hand-held secondary. The V1 for video and the occasional WAY THE HECK over there shot with the adapter. It is pretty funny to put the V1 on my 400 f2.8+TC-20E III. If my math is correct: 2.7*400*2 = 2160mm f5.6, gnats eyebrow time :biggrin: I actually tried BIF with the V1 and adapter just for grins, and it was a bit of a disaster. While the AF is darned good, it wasn't good enough for a flying Short-eared Owl.
And what kind of wimp is worried about carrying around 2 DSLR's? C'mon, I'm a 63 yr old grump, if I can do it ANYBODY can. ( no wise-A remarks, Randy .... :wink: )