New, Cheaper HD Tivo?

Reports are coming out that Tivo may be releasing a more reasonible price HD Tivo soon.  I first caught wind of this story on Slashdot, but Ars Techinca published the scoop.

[T]o summarize, the S3L loses some of the finer points of the regular Series 3, namely the OLED display, the fancier remote, and THX certification. There's also a 90GB drop in HD size which shaves more than 10 hours of HD recording time off of the device.  Are these things worth the $300+ price delta compared to the regular Series 3?

So a question remains.  Will Tivo offer lifetime service?  I currently have two (2) series 2 with lifetime service and prefer it over paying a monthly service fee.

-Chris