AMD Adds Gallium3D H.264 Profile Encoding Support

[_SXX_]

List of games that even optionally use 4.4: 0

Not saying about OpenGL 4.4 contexts, but Planetary Annihilation now uses ARB_buffer_storage (4.4 spec) and next stable version going to use ARB_compute_shader (4.3 spec), but It's looks that won't work without OpenGL 4.2 support. Both are optional, but helps to boost performance.

[curaga]

Okay, list bumped to one

[Mat2]

And most of them just have Intel graphics, because they didn't need anything more powerful.

From what I have read in PC shop leaflets, there are quite few computers without integrated graphics nowadays.
Remember, we are discussing machines that are usually like 5 years old (that's the mean). Intel GPUs were not so powerful then.

[Mat2]

Games are less important than video playback.
Also, some people like to be able to play videos without pegging their CPU at full speed. These people outnumber gamerz by at least 10000:1.

Don't agree. Playing videos with 100% CPU load may be annoying but it works.