I have to ask, why are suddenly memory chips being placed on the posterior of the card? Doesn't gigabyte's heatsink make contact with all components (memory and VRM) to cool them? Does this not affect PC operation or memory overclocking in any way?

This has been a common thing, for a long time. Does it affect overclocking? Maybe, a little, but not significantly. Memory doesn't require much to cool. If you're really concerned, they sell heatsinks that you can use on them.

The 960 seems to be getting rekt by every other card in the price range when AF/AA is activated. Not worth the extra 60bucks for maxwell and power consumption.