Given the reliance on published literature, which overlies that long history of the H&E, properly researching and publishing methods that are "better" than H&E..for each and every previously documented entity..will take a very, very long time, even if a "better" method exists or were to be developed.
Autopsy is still around, despite having not changed much at its core in oodles of generations, though we've added newfangled H&E to that process as well as a number of other tests and better documentation of what certain things do and don't mean. It's just extremely difficult to justify elimination of looking at a thing when there is no method which is better in -every- aspect. I bring up imaging a lot because I think it's a good example -- CT, MRI, x-ray, etc. are all very good at certain things, even better than a "standard" autopsy at some, but not at others, and even in combination are simply still not as effective as autopsy for many things. Of course, numbers of autopsies have dropped sharply so perhaps that isn't the best example..
IMO slides aren't going away, at least not soon, and if they do it will be preceded by numerous comparative studies addressing not just identification but also staging, prognosis, etc. -- literally, the writing will be on the wall. Not that it hasn't started to some extent, of course.
None of that is to say that one shouldn't do a molecular fellowship; I think it's a good one to keep alive and keep putting pathologists into, because there's a certain blind faith that seems to surround it among those who don't think, just as there is a lot of current and potential future expansion of its use among those who do.
(There's alarmist and there's "I told you so". I figure one of these days pathstudent is going to come back here and dig up proof of being the first to see "it" coming and slather it in everyone's face, heh, even if other things never end up quite as dramatic as proposed.)
