Okay, here's my view of the Classic situation. Is the Classic selling enough to justify its own existance? I don't know, only Apple does. If it's not, it will probably go away, regardless of what I and other carry-my-whole-100+gig-lib-with-me guys feel. I love the Classic for the build quality, the interface and most of all, the storage. Ain't no way I'm not taking my whole lib with me and going back to less storage in a new model just feels... well, wrong. But again, if it's not profitable enough as a product, there's nothing I can do about it and I'll have to switch to Archos or something like that.
But, and this needs to be said, I'm not buying (almost) any of the arguments against the Classic. Let's take the "times have changed"-argument. This implies that just because the Classic's been around awhile and because it has moving parts, it's junk. Old stuff. Can't have it no more. Really, why? It doesn't have any shorter battery life (ssd's might require less power but the big-ass screens eat up any juice you might save). The durability argument is a laugh as well. Gadgets like iPod don't last more than a few years anyway, if you use 'em everyday. That's just the way it is. No matter how well built they are, they eventually break down. You Classic haters mean to tell me you're gonna be rocking that 2nd generation touch in ten years? Come on, of course not.
The argument that you can stream music is even more ridiculous. I invite you to join me on one of my 8+ hours train rides through the middle of nowhere. The wifi reception there is about as strong as Nicole Richie's biceps. Of course that's not an option. I realize the market for mini hdd's is decreasing and that Apple might be forced to switch to ssd in awhile but until they can provide at least the same (160gb) or more storage for the same price (or ever so slighly higher), it's not an option, I think. And yeah, I guess if you're a jogger and you need your pod to be shock proof, the Classic might not work (even though I've run full marathons with mine and had no problems). But who needs their whole lib when they're running? You just start a playlist and keep going until you're done for the day.
The only thing I sometimes miss on my Classic, is the 16:9 aspect ratio for the very few times I actually watch a movie on it. Aside from that, it's still kicking. Like I said in the beginning of my post, only Jobs knows if it's still profitable and I realize Apple is a company that caters to the masses, not the dudes with 140 gigs of delta blues tunes. But if you want to have a serious discussion about the specs and arguments for/against the Classic, you need to give me something more than "it's old".
As far as future updates, I would like to see a storage increase and FLAC compatibility. Better sound thru headphone amp and dac upgrades would be nice as well but that's never gonna happen.
