I've held the belief for a few years now that there are only two possible roads the society might take. The society might decide to simply stop focusing on prophecy and chronology. Getting out of the doomsday prophecy business altogether would prevent future embarrassment. However, they would be faced with the task of keeping their membership from declining, which is likely to be the result without the promise of an imminent Armageddon to solve their problems. For this to be successful, they would have to break down their rigid structures and rules. There wouldn't be as much of an incentive for the rank and file to leave the religion if they were allowed to live more normal lives. Essentially, this would entail a complete mainstreaming of the religion.
The other possibility is that they will dismantle their current prophetic structure and go about the task of creating a new prophetic paradigm. The Society would lose membership as a result, but they could retain the vast majority of their members if they find a way to claim that the change is part of some prophesized cleansing work. They might find new ways to extend Armageddon's "deadline" to some new point in the foreseeable future, while maintaining the possibility for it to arrive tomorrow. The society has had deadlines for all of its history. The last deadline was 1994, but it was done away with in 1995.
All the society is doing at this point is buying itself a little more time. Maybe they still believe that Armageddon is truly just around the corner. If the JWs don't have reason to believe that Armageddon is right around the corner, what's to prevent them from leaving? They have virtually eliminated the carrot, but have retained a very heavy stick (which constantly beat their followers with). I think their current status is untenable. It's a matter of time before membership starts dropping, in my opinion. I suppose family and social pressure as well as the reluctance to accept the fact that your religious beliefs are wrong keeps a lot of them there. Regardless, as time goes on, I'll be watching from a distance to see which of these two approaches the society decides to adopt.
In short, if the society decides to undergo mainstream changes, I think they will keep membership levels at their current levels. They may even increase in number. If they keep the status quo or if they re-interpret their doctrine, their numbers will definitely decline.
