Yep, unless the FCC changes the license classifications it's a safe bet that eventually Novice and Advanced Class licensees will eventually disappear. The Grim Reaper is relentless.
I started out in 1968 with a WN call. As many of you old timers may remember these were the days when taking your amateur tests meant a trip to your local FCC Field Office. Back then the Novice License was good for 1 year and was non-renewable. And the Novice Class licensee could only use up to 75-watts [input] to the final stage of their transmitter, and they could only use crystal controlled transmitters on a few small segments of a few amateur bands. This was also back when there was no Internet to run to, to read and memorize the questions and answers. And course there were the various CW tests to pass too. Back then Novice Class licensee had a lot of incentive to study, learn and pass the Technician or higher license class, or go off the air after a year.
As many hams did, I worked my way up through all 5 license classes (Novice, Tech, General, Advanced, and Extra). Granted it was a different time back then, but I definitely remember feeling a very high sense of pride when I passed my Novice license. The Novice License was basically a license to learn.
Personally I think a mistake was made eliminating the Novice and Advanced Class license classes. Based on what I've read lately the ARRL's focus seems to be lobbying the FCC to give away more privilege's to the lower class licensees. Perhaps their main goal is ensure a steady increase in the amateur population.
Providing many achievement license steps (5 is a good number), with actual corresponding steps of improving privileges, would not only provide more incentive steps for people to aim for, study and work toward, but also it would instills a lot of pride in ones license class. Imagine if changes were made to the General Class to where they could only use portions of the all of the HF bands, and could only use 400 watts. And imagine if the Advanced Class added additional band segments with a 1kw power limitation, and passing the Extra Class tested yielded all the band segments and full legal limit (1500 watts). Yeah, I know... additional OO and FCC enforcement would be required, but consider, we'd have a lot more people studying and taking pride in their increasing achievements and privileges. It's been my experience that people tend to have a much higher respect for something when they have to work hard for it.