Great thread - read it from beginning to end this morning, and now realise why 90% of bike shops I visited with my '99 Cannondale treated me like a complete tw@t.
The old Cycle Surgery in Spitalfields was the worst (by a long way) even though they had only stopped selling 'dales about 6 months after I bought mine. My CAAD 3 bike was built up from frame & forks, no proprietary components necessary, all common sizes and interfaces, yet even when I entered a shop knowing precisely what I wanted (an easy sale), I was treated like some rich prick with a flash bike (not rich, never have been). Pretty sad really, I think the BMW analogy elsewhere in this thread is quite accurate.
Innovations like stealth city bicycles (practically every manufacturer copied the Bad Boy), BB30 and Lefty are what really differentiate the company from the Church of Klein, imo.
As for newer non-'Handbuilt in the USA' Cannondales, you can keep them.
A mate hired a CAAD 10 road bike from a local shop the other week and the build quality (and weight) of it was just shocking. Didn't ride well either.
As a company they've definitely lost something, and I wouldn't consider buying a new Cannondale today.
I'd fecking love an old Track frame though.