A point that is often overlooked in discussions about the Mozilla Foundation as the new custodian of the Mozilla browser is its significance in the realm of commercial browsers. Netscape will probably definitely die, and AOL apparently has no more interest in it (according to Zeldman's source, they're even removing the logos). Mozilla will probably only exist as a free product from now on, and commercial Netscapes will likely disappear in the long run. So AOL is surrendering the territory without a fight to Microsoft and the open source variants of Mozilla.
I can't say I'm surprised by this - AOL never had real interest in Netscape anyway; it was just a means to an end, and with the latest agreement with Microsoft, that means has become superfluous. For AOL, it was never about browser freedom in the antitrust proceedings against Microsoft.
In the end, the user is left behind, because Internet Explorer with its lousy implementation can dominate the market a little bit more - unless Mozilla establishes itself on a broader scale, but that will probably now happen less through companies pushing it and more only through users themselves.