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Authors and commentators have been saying that SF&F has been dying since the 80's. The odd thing is that when I went by B&N yesterday, the SF section looked just as full. SF&F has changed quite a bit since I first started reading and it does seem to go through cycles - Tolkien knockoffs, Middle ages based fantasy, hard SF, military SF, urban fantasy, cyper-punk, vampire/werewolf fantasies, the list goes on and on.
One thing that I've noticed is that SF&F publishing especially seems to be personality based. Lin Carter, Lester Del Rey's wife Judy-Lynn Del Rey, Jim Baen and several others have all been big in nurturing the SF&F categories and bringing in new authors. I'm not sure who is the current equivalent of those editors/publishers.
It seems to me that the biggest challenge for the future will be how new talent is brought into the field and taught the craft. Baen use to pair new authors with older, established authors. Most new authors at least need a good editor.
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