Difficulty will go up until mining is no longer profitable for those with inefficient gear and/or high overhead. It cannot go up far beyond this point because many(most) will stop mining which will cause difficulty to fall. \
I am curious as to the reason why people would go so far as to stop mining. As far as I know, if you actually have an asic in hand, for most people, the only expense afterwards would be electricity. As long as it makes some sort of profit after electricity costs, would'nt people continue to mine in order to minimize losses, even if they can not get back the cost of the asic?
Oh, and good job on the new equipment
, and yes basic-mining can definitely "weather the storm".