XNA-Gamestudio is even less "Studio".

Imo it´s to extreme to predict the end of the acknex story.

When you look at some of the recent simulator games in germany,
(farmer simulator, digger simulator, garbage man simulator, busdriver simulator...)
then you´ll realize that literally every 3d engine is suited for these kind of games.
And these games sell very well.
The engine just doesn´t matter. The only thing that matters
when it comes to the deal is your personal reliability.

(This conclusion doesn´t come from me, it comes from so called "veterans" in the game scene.
e.g. producers, projectmanagers, developers)

Indie AAA games are doomed to fail, so why should every indie engine developer bother with so called "next gen" features?

If you really hit the jackpot and attract a publisher, you´ll go with gamebryo or any other engine, that fits industrial standards, just because you have the budget.
Then you don´t have to look at alternatives - you can grab a prooven AAA engine out of the pool.
However, this will happen to only 0.01% percent of us.

"Team Vienna" for example adapted the Panda engine for their upcoming MMO "7Million".
They developed a lot of inhouse tools for this engine.

We all can only guess why they don´t use a "studio" like Torque, Unity, C4, Acknex, Gamecore or another one.

Basically we shouldn´t judge others by our own standards - everyone needs different tools.