It does not make a lot of sense to drop FF cameras, even for a company like Sony which is well known for dropping products that are not successful.
They have a growing line up of expensive FF lenses, which would become a very hard sell to amateurs who owns sub 1000$ bodies.
Those lenses are not exactly suitable for the Sony professional video cameras that support the alpha mount, since they suffer from the same problem of canon and nikon lenses which are not "cinema lenses" and cannot repeat follow focus reliably.
Therefore the question, if they drop FF and they do not source it from another factory, what are they going to do with all those lenses?
IMo, Sony needs a serious flagship product on order to keep the DSLR department looking decent.
As for thom hogan rumor, he is recognized as a no BS person, I normally tend to consider his view, yet I know that many times he has been wrong, even if in bona fede.
This time he does not exactly quote his sources.
The way he quotes them, is too vague for giving its the due credibility. I think if he cannot quote sources properly, he should have kept it for himself.
Hopefully he is wrong, it would be better for Nikon, Sony and also Canon user. I would hate to see FF development slowing down and going back to 8K cameras bodies only.
Anyway for what is worth, there are also rumors of the next FF Sony camera that it is due for beginning 2011, it would offer a new sensor technology and it has been tested on the MP count of 24 and 30+.
it was posted on the usual Sony Alpha rumors site, which has about the same succes rate than Thom Hogan.... actually a bit higher.
cheers!