This is definitely the way of the future. It seems like the gap between hobbyists and professionals is slowly closing. Soon every man in the street will be able to do what tradionally only an Electronic Engineer can do, but only the EE will know how it works under the hood. :-/
But somehow I think the Arduino type 8bit solutions will always have a place, because ARM Cortex is a waste of power for many of the simpler applications that the Arduino is aimed at.
However boards like the Maple will definitely enable the hobbyist to explore advanced projects. Which could be a good and a bad thing.