Whats it's loss will mean is that pilots will not have a rating that enhances pilot ability, skill and confidence. However the solution to that is for AOPA to maintain it as a certificate rather than a licence rating.
I quite agree with that and with Fuji's comments earlier. As I have said before, the trend towards, Permit, LSA, VLA (and other alphabet combinations) means there are likely to be fewer IFR equipped aircraft owned privately or in flight training schools. As a rating it will become less valuable, but as pure training it will remain an important enhancement to pilot skills. It is no different from doing an AOPA aerobatic course or mountain flying. All will improve your airmanship and handling, which is what it should be about.
I recently re read Alex Henshaw's Flight of the Mew Gull. In it he talks of spending hours training himself for "blind flying", sometimes using the new fangled gyro instruments. It was of course all about skills level and not about wanting to fly in IMC or IFR (which iI guess did not exist then).