The beginning of the end for makerbot ???

Yup. Robox had problems with their Chinese mfr but have worked hard to claw it back. They may be one of the few exceptions to the Use-China-And-Die lesson.

This looks like the end of Makerbot as a distinct company.  Stratasys isn't going direct to China with the Makerbots, but using a US-based consulting company who already know how properly offshore manufacturing.  If Solidoodle had done that, and looked for outside investment rather than getting pre-orders, the Press could have been a success.

This is good news for the Makerbot as a printer.  If the Gen 6 or whatever is at this point entirely designed and manufactured by Stratasys, it should be a good printer.  Since it will be manufactured somewhere else, it has a chance of getting a reasonable price as well.  I'm not sure how much Stratasys wants Makerbot to succeed however.  The better a $2000 Makerbot becomes, the harder it will be to sell $10k Mojos to small businesses.