GPU mining was dead in a few months for how many years now? I put together a 4x 7950 rig in 2013, and it's been more or less profitable for 4+ years despite bitcoin, scrypt, and others all going ASIC. It's not always highly profitable, but at a minimum I get free power for 3-4 months a year because I account the heat output as equivalent to my resistance-based heater. By the time the residual value of the hardware is calculated, it's basically a medium risk hobby.

The reality is too many people want mining to be GPU-based for the ecosystem of mine-able coins to disappear. CPU-based lends itself too easily toward botnets, ASIC based lends itself to centralized manufacturers with the NRE capital, and that leaves GPU as the quasi-distributed platform that enthusiasts center around.