The M262 is a great announcement. If it's eligible for the discount it's a great deal.
Now if they made it a little thinner it would be very tasty. Keep going in this direction, Leica!
I doubt they can make the M more than 2mm thinner due to the required mount register, metering system, and sensor-shutter assembly space requirements, and that would take losing the LCD (which most folks don't want, judging from the discussions on the ME60) and redesigning the body shell*and electronics layout. The typ 240 grew a single mm in thickness compared to the M9, which was actually a big improvement as it stemmed from anchoring the tripod mount in the body structure rather than in the base plate.
Of course, they could redesign the body to mount the lens flange on a protruding pedestal and slim the rest of the body around it by some amount, again necessitating a major redesign of the body and electronics to suit. The classic look of the M would change in doing that as a consequence, which you
know would incite the usual opinion storm ... ;-)
Would it really be worth all that development money?
Other modernizations that have been talked about (such as: electronic rangefinder system, live view system, auto focus capability, adoption of the L mount providing M mount through dedicated smart adapter, etc) will change the M more extensively. In that transition, I could easily see slimming the body just as they have with the T and SL bodies. Those sorts of paradigm changes would be worth the development money, if that's the direction Leica wants to take the M.
I guess that no matter which way they go, the opinion storm will follow. =8^\
G