re: Unfortunate but not unexpected
[Conditions may have been more hospitable earlier, with water less briny, but later conditions at Meridiani and elsewhere on the surface of Mars appear to have been less hospitable, Knoll said. "Life at the Martian surface would have been very challenging for the last 4 billion years. The best hopes for a story of life on Mars are at environments we haven't studied yet -- older ones, subsurface ones," he said.]
I'm hoping that the old rivers and delta features may still offer some hope on the search. If only in fossil forms, of course. They may still have to *dig* and who knows what they'll find.
At least they can modify future rovers (Mars Science Laboratory) and site selections.