I think the current Mac Pro is an example of a product design that has survived beyond its time. Apple rather obviously wants to sell little boxes that people can fit together, using ThunderBolt, to deliver the advantages of the Mac Pro. Many users won't like that because their choices are likely to be reduced. But, Apple's revenue stream from the Mac Pro would stand to increase. After all, that is the *only* reason Apple has to keep it around.
I'll take Tim Cook at face value about a new Pro coming next year. Will it be a big box with lots of conventional slots? I'd be surprised.(Bet it's intended to be used with a 30-inch standalone Retina monitor.)
While pros want the latest, greatest and fastest, I think one reason Apple is considering ditching the MacPro is performance. I know we are comparing Sandy/Ivy with Xeons and differing number of cores and max memory, but it can be pointed out that current Mac laptops have approximately the same performance as the MacPro when it was released 5 years ago. Current consumer computers are wicked fast for most people. The 4k video editing crowd and the 100MB per photo professional are really a small niche in the Apple universe. That performance difference will be getting smaller as each year goes by.
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