If WotC hadn't gone moron mode and removed the one thing that made 3rd edition a wildfire success, Paizo would not have made their own game. They were one of the four or five companies that were given early access to the license agreements and such for 4E, and (like pretty much everybody else in that group), decided that it simply wasn't good business sense to take Wizards up on the offer. In fact, it was better business sense to roll the dice and make their own RPG.
The 3.0/3.5 SRD didn't cause the downfall of D&D. Moving forward without it did.
Also:
I said 4.E. Notice the "point". I was referring to Essentials, which is the rough equivalent of 3.5 (and it was the second or third time I'd referred to Essentials as a revised edition in this thread). It changes about as much of the game, the only difference is that you can choose to play without it if you want.Also, about a year and a half? As of right now, 4E has been out for 3 1/2 years. 5E is very unlikely to be out before the 5-year mark.