To get rid of the standard model and replace it with a suddenly more expensive model would've be a bad move. They needed to give it a year to give a big indicator to the crowd that optical drives, firewire and ethernet ports (and overall user upgradability) would be phased out of Apple laptop design.
Then again Apple have made no secret optical drives have been on the chopping block for a while.
They ARE giving it a year. That's what the (Mid 2012) generation of non-retina unibody MacBook Pros is. A one year stay of execution on a dead-design walking. Frankly, for those of us that want upgradability, optical drives, FireWire and Ethernet ports (and yes, I'm one of them) before they're gone, it's awesome and better than Apple has ever done when it comes to them killing off "legacy" things in favor of solutions THEY feel are superior and what the consumers SHOULD want.