There's tons of reviews out there for less expensive mid-upper mid tier gaming laptops.

This is just silly.  It's the product of the same kind of thinking that causes some auto enthusiasts to focus on 0-60 times, and lust after wildly impractical and unaffordable super cars.  At the end of the day, very few people want a gaming laptop that weighs a ton, runs for about 15 minutes before it's out of battery power, burns your lap from the heat, and has cooling fans that howl like a banshee and require noise cancelling headphones to hear your game.

When I look at "best of" lists for gaming notebooks, I mostly see notebooks that I'm not sure I'd want even if they were a gift.  It'd be nice if reviewers started to care more about notebooks that represented a sensible compromise between playable frame rates at a reasonable resolution, and a sensible cooling solution that neither burns you nor annoys a family member sitting on the other end of the couch.