In the meantime, guru 3D released their own thermal imaging test, presenting lower but still rather high temperature measurements.
For me, as someone only superficially informed about thermal measuring I cannot evaluate the accuracy of this new review. But since both find a rather high value, we can at least conclude that EVGA cards DO run hotter than other cards in that area on the PCB and that the thermal pads are meant to remedy this.

When you say the card won't go past 40 C - that is the GPU chip itself being monitored - The VRM chip's are not monitored for temperature and are rated up to 125 C (as far as i'm aware) and can run hotter than the GPU chip itself, so the hottest component's on the graphic's card (VRM's) don't have any cooling solution applied to them and can result in overheating or radiating that heat produced to other component's on the board which in time will cause failiure, I had a good look at my GTX 1070 FTW and there is a gap between the VRM chips and the main cooling plate like there should be a thermal pad there but not been put on, so there is no cooling on my VRM's whatsoever !  I think EVGA board designers need to think more about cooling the VRM's not just the main GPU chip that is monitored as even my Gigabyte 970 ITX has it's own VRM cooling plate & thermal pad.  As for the offer of thermal pad's for my shiny new GPU - that's all fine, but do I want to take a screwdriver to a piece of equipment that just cost me over £400 - I think not !