I seem to remember something from Dish's FCC filing that Hopper 3 would have some type of Mirror-casting technology, and apparently from the press release posted above, will be loaded onto the current Hoppers and HWS's, and that may be the "preclude" part because Mirro-casting does pretty much what the Virtual Joey does, and at no extra cost, one presumes, and to just about any HDTV in the house.
The devil is in the details: will this have to be initiated via mobile device (like Slingbox to Roku)? Can we initiate it from the Hopper or Joey itself without a mobile device? Will it mirror from only a Hopper or Joey or either? Of course, this would mean that the Hopper or Joey being used fro the Mirror-cast would be unavailable for someone else to use independently while another person is Mirror-casting to whatever room with the HDTV at the same time, hence, no extra?
So, it could be about taking a Hopper and Joey and "extending" to another room to an HDTV like the Mirroring many already do with modulators, HDMI or other types of splitters, but now it would be built-in to the Dish Hopper system. I'd say that is a pretty good compromise for the death of the Virtual Joey since the VJ had such limited availability, but did offer absolute independent viewing at all times.
I can hardly wait to see the new enhancement.