Agree this is all speculation, but what happened to the concert they were going to do in Israel in September? That was announced just after the 3rd O2 concert went on sale - and everyone said "D'Oh!" because we had all fallen over ourselves to get the last O2 tix in case it WAS the last one? (Sorry, I'm too lazy to google it... long day gardening...)
And I thought I remembered some story from an interview after the last north americal leg ended in November, said they Stones had a tentative plan to keep going at least until 2012 which would be their 50th anniversary. Did anyone else hear that, or did I imagine it?
Deceided not to worry about it - fate will decide if they tour longer or stop earlier than anyone wants or plans. And the large tours are probably not going to be done much in future anyway, as it takes too many resources to conduct them - 70 trucks to haul equipment, private jets, at a time when climate change is such a hot button issue...
Personal fantasy? That they set themselves up somewhere every 3 months and play 2 or 3 small-venue gigs every week for a month... It would be great - less travel for them, lots of opportunity to vary the setlists... Imagine a month with ten shows at the Beacon in NYC, or other venues in London, LA, Toronto, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Sydney, Rio, Prague, Madrid ... sort of a cooler version of Branson...