Its ancient history now, but this report did caused me a fair bit of irritation at the misinformation from WotC. However, Scott Rouse has posted over at WotC that he was misquoted, and he referred to good stuff for 3.5 coming out in 2007, not 2008.
He couldn't correct it at the time, because that would have been rather a large hint that 4th edition was planned for 2008.
19 February 2007
D&D Experience, the convention previously known as Winter Fantasy, is now over - and D&D 4th Edition was not announced! From "Abyssal Maw" who was present at the show:
The 4th Edition Question gets a lot of laughter.
"I'm surprised it took this long for someone to ask that. It's going to come at some point. It's a long ways away. You'll get an announcement when that happens, but it's a long ways away. We have a lot of good stuff coming out through 2008."
He couldn't correct it at the time, because that would have been rather a large hint that 4th edition was planned for 2008.