LOL. No, they're not going to replace the one-year-old 24-70/2.8L II with a MkIII version of the lens. Although this price drop will likely fuel speculation that an IS version of the 24-70/2.8 is coming soon, I doubt that's true, either.

What this means is that Canon and retailers want to move stock, to meet sales targets for the year, free up warehouse space for holiday stock, etc. Last year at this time, the price of the 70-200/2.8L IS II dropped to under $2K. Then it went back up to $2500.