The end of (an era at) Winston rod company?

This weekend the bad news came: the whole bamboo crew (Glenn Brackett and his colleagues Jeff Walker and Jerry Kustich) resigned from the RL Winston Rod company as it seems. The story is that there is a difference in view about the successor to Glenn. The management wants to hire a successor on their merit while Glenn feels that he is the one who can say who is capable of continuing the bamboo tradition that made Winston so famous. The other issues seems to be that the management wants a huge production increase (2500 rods vs the ca. 100 now!).

This is certainly the end of an era (Glenn has worked 30+ years at Winston) and probably we are looking at the end of a great name (more than 75 years) in bamboo.

Not sure what will happen to Winston bamboo rods, the older ones and the new to be built rods. The older ones built by Brackett surely will increase in value making them even more out of reach for the average Joe. The quality of the new bamboo rods will definitely be different from the Brackett built rods. But maybe a new master builder will stand up to take Winston to the next era as a premium bamboo rod company. Although I doubt that any ambitious maker would like to work under the conditions of the current management...

Here are some articles from/about Glenn:
Glenn's view on bamboo rod making (Part 1)
Glenn's view on bamboo rod making (Part 2)
Glenn's view on bamboo rod making (Part 3)

Glenn's regret on selling Winston to Ondaatje

Glenn and the Boo boys opened their own bamboo rod making company in 2007: Sweetgrass rods.

Update March 2015:
Here is a more recent interview with Glenn.