In my opinion WotC clearly hasn't thought things through. First if *I* can leak the information before they have made the announcement they clearly have no control over their employees.
Next you run into the issue that yes 4th ed. fractured the gaming world. It is very difficult to find a new group of players for a game anymore. You add in yet another ruleset and you could destroy the already fragile fantasy tabletop world.
Finally you get into the issue of the greed machine and how soon is now?
At the rate they are going might as well announce 6th and 7th edition as well, and tell everyone that in order to play you are going to have to buy three copies of every book per player.
