You must have been one of the few who thought there would be an update last fall . If you look back through my postings before last fall, I claimed that there would be no Touch design update in fall 2013, almost everyone agreed with me, and there was no design update.
1. I actually had no idea what to expect last fall. Similarly, I don't know what to expect this fall; but I do expect that the iPod line will go from four products (Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Touch) down to three or even two and then eventually down to a singular iPod before vanishing altogether, and I expect that to happen sooner rather than later. More specific than that, I can't predict.
2. I don't take stock in what the general consensus of the forum posters on this site say as most of them don't pay attention to trends and easily confuse what they want Apple to do for what they think Apple will do. Similarly, even then, of the few that don't do this, there is still enough that take one or two key events in Apple's recent history as unchangeable gospel (when it ends up being defied by them later anyway).
You are only looking at the Touch percentage and not how much money that percentage actually is. I can't see Apple abandoning all that revenue by canceling the Touch.
Right because obviously those customers haven't given thought to buying an iPhone on contract. $0 for the 4S is stupid, but $100 for a 5C (which is superior to the 5th gen iPod touch in nearly every way) for 16GB or, hell, $200 for a 32GB 5C at $100 less than a 32GB fifth generation iPod touch? Now sure, that doesn't factor those paying full price for their iPhone, but in how many places is this overly common? Judging from their sales figures, I'd guess it's not all that common.