They could stop doing the science and return to the dark ages of publishing just the flowery bullshit. [They can't do this because (thanks to ASR and others) the science cannot be put back in its box].
I wouldn't bet on that, they are feeling the heat IMO.
If you read this months Stereophile, Jim Austin uses the entire Page 1 "As We See It" to rant against speakers designed to measure well.
"I admire Toole's work, but I do
not admire conformists who insist, often with insufficient self-examination, that everything be judged by the same narrow criteria. There may be a single best way to roast a chicken, but I'm glad different chefs use different recipes."
"It's especially disheartening when narrow-minded online critics use one aspect of our coverage—our measurements—to attack the other side: our subjective judgments."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/hoisted-your-own-petard
Then back in Dec he used that same column to attack the use of ABX testing and short term comparisons.
"Subjectivist audiophiles have long maintained that long-term listening is necessary to assess the quality and character of an audio component."
He wraps up the writing with this position,
"Accuracy—fidelity—is, for most serious listeners, the benchmark we measure our systems against, whether we measure fidelity by objective or subjective criteria. But other valid criteria exist. Maybe some listeners just want sound that minimizes, or even alleviates, stress, whether through second-harmonic distortion, suppressed response in the presence region (aka BBC dip), natural interaural relationships, or whatever. Maybe some people just want their sound system to sound good."
https://www.stereophile.com/content/slow-listening
Overall what I read between the lines is that they're really starting to feel the heat being written around the web against indefensible positions on subjective sound impressions vs the science of measurement. I believe it's highly possible that after we reach a point that John Atkinson should decide to retire, that the measurement side of their reviews could either disappear completely, or some inventive ways be found to drasticaly reduce any impact it may have on the subjective side of the review..
I hope I'm wrong but, Only time will tell..........................................