Yet another "we don't want you, ** off already" from Apple to pro video and audio industry that made the brand...
Microsoft and other hardware vendors had sewn up the (typical) business market a long time ago, so it's no real surprise that Apple are nudging out and going where the money is readily available, ie - consumers.
I suspect the Mac Pro series will be phased out over the next few years/cycles considering the 6.1 is far from your typical workstation and only caters for a select few.
Tbh, i'd quite like to see Apple step back in with proper business apps/services and hardware (OSX server is laughable with their current 'server' hardware); it'd certainly make the lives of us admins who look after Mac networks a lot easier.
But as you say though, it's a big "*' you" to the original core users as it leaves very few upgrade paths - you either splash the cash on a 6.1 and new hardware and/or thunderbolt addons, or you save a bucket load of cash by switching to Windows/Linux platforms (where/if you can) and deal with the headaches of learning a new workflow.
Certainly i know a few that work in the music industry that have or are looking into doing the latter and there's a lot of sense in doing it now that most of the major packages are cross-platform.
But it's all a bit of a PITA!
Edit - I know users could use upgraded 5.1's (Create Pro etc) but that's only prolonging the inevitable. And 'Hackintosh' systems lack any official support to make them viable for businesses/work-critical environments.
