Just watched this, at first we were a bit

but it does kinda make sense having read the masterofsopranos blog. In the build up, we were expecting Tony to get whacked. The bloke who came in with AJ just seemed dodgy, camera focussing on him etc. Meadow was having trouble parking, and my thoughts were "she's gonna be late so will walk in to find her whole family has been executed, that's what saves her life"
The fade to black for 10s of silence definitely seems indicative of death, of nothingness, and the "you never see it coming" line from earlier has some resonance.
I also think they chose not to show him getting killed because it keeps the door open for a possible movie or whatever. If they showed his brains getting splattered all over the booth, they can't come back from that, their lead character is finished. As it stands, they could still put out a movie if they wanted because the ending is ambiguous.
A couple of things I didn't really get though:
1) Who wanted him dead? The main protagonist had been taken care of.
2) What was with Paulie turning down Tony's offer? Why and what was the significance? Maybe I missed a crucial bit of the dialogue but I didn't really buy his lines about wanting to take it easy due to health scares etc, seemed totally out of character.