I'm slightly saddened by that announcement but to be fair the Elise has been around for over 25 years now, and that's a longer production run than most. (the Esprit just beats it ?)
The "slightly saddened" part comes from the suspicion that Lotus are re-inventing the mistakes of the late 70s when they abandoned the enthusiast (and cheaper) market and went for the high end Porsche market with the Esprit/Elite/Eclat cars. They had to revert back with the M100 Elan and it really wasn't until the Elise came along that they returned to "mass" market sales. It'd be disappointing to see them go through another cycle like that.
Brian