I think it only makes sense that the MBA is the future of notebooks. ODDs are useful for some people, but for the vast majority of us they're useless. Removing them in favor of a bigger battery would be the best move, as laptops are now the norm over desktops and battery life is now becoming the make-or-break in the competition in laptops and tablets. I think SSDs will have to wait until prices lower so that you can realistically use a laptop as your only computer and still keep all your media. The recent rumor of a removed ODD in favor of a small (~16GB) boot drive seems odd, as 2 storage drives doesn't make sense. You're better off with a sole 128GB SSD, again allowing a bigger battery in place of the rumored second drive.
I think when Apple claims it's the future, all they're really saying is that ODDs are obsolete and as SSD becomes cheaper, that will be the norm. We all already knew that; it's just Apple finding anything and everything to use as marketing material.
