I can't make up my mind on this, so thinking that an outside prospective might help here.

I have traded my desktop rig for a Dell 9300 with these specs...

Pentium M 2.26GHz
2GB DDR2 533
7800GTX 256mb
Samsung Truelife 17" 1920x1200
100GB 7200RPM
8x DL DVD+-RW

And I have seen pics and it's truely in mint condition, an awesome notebook no doubts about it.

Now this summer I'll be traveling which is why I went the notebook route in the first place. I have been going back and forth on should I keep it, or sell it and buy a less powerful/smaller notebook (thinking along the lines of the S96J or similuar). Think I could come out with enough cash after the other notebook to make the hassle of selling and buying worth it? I've been debating because cash is always handy, but this notebook has a very nice GPU, something that I know I couldn't come close to if I sold it and bought a lower grade.

My main game atm is EQ2 and I still love BF1942, I wanted to get into FEAR so that's where the GPU of the 7800GTX would come into handy...

Wow, That laptop looks really powerfull. I'm certain it will be able to easily take on what ever you throw its way. You could downgrade, but you will be sacraficing the 7800GTX and possibly the 17inch+processor speed.