(a) Deprecation of a framework is inaccurate. It was halting development on OpenDoc -- which had been sold as the future of software development on Macs and other OS's up to that point (sort of, you had to be there). There is no modern parallel; Apple halting all development on UIKit and removing support and tools for it tomorrow would be something like it.

(b) Steve said in the video that the guy in the audience might be right. But he also said that Apple had to focus to survive.

Apple just barely made it -- remember that while the iMac was a design masterpiece, it wasn't that big compared to the rest of the industry; Apple was still essentially fighting for its life with every hardware release until the iPod.