Harsh? How so?
Eric Noah DID publically recant, taking back his earlier wild claims about 4e D&D, and repudiating the validity of his earlier "source": He even went so far as to promise never to do it again ("I'm out of the 4e rumour business for good"; to paraphrase).
Harsh in your summation and characterization of all of Eric Noah's posts on the subject. He was pretty upfront about how what he had posted in a thread (not to the news) could have been a misunderstanding somewhere coming down the pipe, and how parts seemed surprising/unlikely to him (the parts you really drill on). Even your paraphrase is a bit off, especially taking into consideration his further elaboration on it.
As for the rest of you essay, I wouldn't be surprised if right now D&D print is floating in or near the break even point. They haven't really been shipping a high ratio of compelling items, and that's where the money is. Publishing for meaningful profit is ultimately a hit driven market.
Interestingly Monte Cook's assessment of what happened with 3.5, the link to the full text of which is now being linked on the ENWorld front page, mostly rings true with me. I was an early adopter, bought and started playing the day that the first shipment made it into the local FLGS. That's about the time I and the rest of my group mostly stopped buying books. A few in the group have purchased a couple books since then, but I haven't bought a one.
Not out of spite or anything, because a guy's gotta make a living and trying to sell me things is one way to do that. But I think they tried to force the situation too hard and I just broke with the program. I still play D&D, I even play 3.5 sporatically as of recently. Though that might change with that group. I just haven't bought any of the books myself and don't intend to.
As well I do suspect that they want to try tune 4e to further tap into that collectables revenue stream. I think adding Stunt cards that are handed out as rewards in the game would be an interesting idea. However I'm not sure they'll get me back. I've seen gaming past D&D and I'm not sure I'm that motivated to go back. Time will tell I guess. I doubt that whatever they come up with will be
bad, but I also don't forsee anything they come up with as compelling me to fork over my cash for. *shrug*
I also have this idea that tapping more into a collectable stream will
encourage them to keep an SRD for 4e. Because then they have an opportunity, though a bit tricky, to arrange it so others do the dirty work of publishing those low margin books and keep their margins higher, with the bonus of forcing the matter again wedging out more customers and seriously fracturing the D&D player base but instead pulling along 3e and 3.5 players. Win-win I think? Just a thought though.
EDIT Besides, I found it all an interesting discusion. I treated it all round as a rumour, but it was a nice bring up to speed thread because like I said I've fallen somewhat out of the D&D loop due to waning interest. Now if you'll excuse me I have my Saturday night non-D&D game session to go to.