I am also 1 that feels that signatures will not be taken away since I feel that's what drives traffic to this place.
After the forum ads has been suspended, I never think signature space will follow the same path. Actually that make projects which only promote on forum ads will consider move to signature campaign since there's no way for them to promote except it is. Maybe we will see few new campaign comes up in the next week or month.
The forum's mission is (almost) unique on the internet:
the forum's mission to be as free as possible.
I don't know a single forum that offers the same level of freedom of speech as Bitcointalk.
I think @theymos want to offer a complete freedom, just like one feature that Bitcoin is offering.