For sure. In the past they used an end of shelf life model where they would produce right up until items were retired and put on sale on a specific date. During those times they had alot of stock on sale and they relied on resellers heavily to clean up the huge amounts of excess stock. During this time resellers had a great relationship with the lego store managers and got early access to sales and got to spend alot of money in the store. You could also call lego customer service and buy every remaining set in their stores (Green Grocer for example) across the country and have them shipped to you.
Then about 3 years ago they changed to an end production date model where they had a specific date in advance where they would end production and that product would remain on shelves until it was sold out. This would help them be able to move stock at RRRP rather than massive amounts to resellers at 50% off. This is when they started the end of discounts on exclusives, and the banning of resellers both online and instore. With this model stock rarely lasted into the holiday shopping season for the retiring sets (FB, GE, SSD, TH, HH etc).
This year the model changed again to "sets on demand". They want stock available to customers so there is no end production date planned in advance on the exclusives. They are doing more frequent smaller runs and as long as licensing is not an issue sets are continuing to be made as long as there is demand. I am expecting all of the retiring exclusives to be in production through the holidays and given to retailers and if there is any excess they should reappear on LEGO Shop at Home. This means you will see some sets listed as "sold out" or "retired" on LEGO Shop at Home but still being restocked at Amazon, Target, Walmart etc on a weekly basis, and the in some cases "sold out" or "retired" tags being changed back to "available now" on LEGO Shop at Home.
Sets will retire, just not in the usual patterns we have seen in the past 3 years, and I am sure in 3 years or so it will all change again as ecommerce and consumer habits continue to evolve very quickly. I believe TLG has figured out the horse has already bolted as far as the secondary market is concerned so now they are all about capturing as much value as they can rather than trying a balancing act. Just MO.