For those who picked up their GTX 970 from Microcenter, I was just contacted by customer support and was informed that they are indeed taking the card back for a refund, not exchange. And I got mine on day one, apparently it's not an issue.
"Hello,
Micro Center at this time is allowing refunds for the card, not exchanges. Please take the card to your local store for the refund.
Thank you for contacting Micro Center. Have a great day!"
So if you're looking at either the GTX 980 or Titan or even another card, Microcenter will take care of it.
There's an open box Sapphire 295X2 for $599.99 at my microcenter, may just take my GTX 970 back and return the other one I just ordered and get that. Or just get a GTX 980 and be content for a while.