I just posted this on the Opera Wishlist forum:
Please keep Opera Classic (=Opera Presto) around for some time(years) with just necessary security patches applied.
In honour of those who shed sweat and tears to design and build it, and for those that used it daily for work or leisure and for those that simply loved it.
Also keep it available because we need it as a testing tool, we need browser engine diversity. Opera Presto is one of the best standard compliant engines.
And most important, because we (developers) need it to test our `graceful degredation` and `progressive enhancement` skills: If our future developed sites aren’t accessible in `Opera Classic` we know we failed.
To all internet artists tweeting their songs: if your work doesn’t sound in the classic Opera, keep practising.