You recommend the 780i only if I want 3-way SLI but what about those of us looking for dual monitor support? Having 3 8800 GTs with 2 in SLI and the other not would be ideal. Are there non 780i boards available that offer this ability?

a 680i SLI board with triple graphics slots would do the job - you just won't get the same huge number of PCIe lanes and neither will you get PCIe Gen 2.0