Yes, I think there a lot of things needed to be done than focusing on PR. Gaining lot of traffic is one of them.
I think Page Rank was only meants to make the Google main search engine... now it is not so important at all.
Well I don't see what the big deal about it is. Some people like to focus on it and some don't. Let those who want to focus on it focus on it! May not play a big role in general, but for some webmasters it's a way of seeing that they have done something right
"rumors rumors - i like rumors" (C) Hans Landa, Inglorious Basterds personally i've heard from several sources that they are cancelling it BUT source of all those rumors could be one little idiot that just wanted to make good joke. that's it. noone can be sure untill that happens for real and i do strongly believe there will be official press release or explanation for this. till now we got nothing i we do have to consider it still remains.