I thought that I read somewhere (I didn't read your link if its posted there) where Dish will still have AMC, it'll just be in the 9000 channel range no joke.
I thought about going back to Dish because of the Hopper since its free w/ new customers where with Direct I have to pay $200 for them to install it and another $20 a month I beiieve, but with Dish dropping AMC is making me rethink about switching. Theres a lot of good shows on AMC