It didn't happen for the original fixed function graphics though, CPUs kept eating their lunch every year or so with fun rendering techniques. We still use some

It didn't happen for the original fixed function graphics though, CPUs kept eating their lunch every year or so with fun rendering techniques. We still use some of these techniques for 2d graphics. Only when they became more general with shaders, and then added support for GPGPU, did it truly take off. I think this generality is the lesson here, not the fact that GPUs are not CPUs.