What a shocking turn of events.
Admittedly I do not know about all of the circumstances that led up to this, and I can only speak about the situation as I perceive it given the information that is available, but my spontaneous reaction is two-fold; On the one hand, I get the impression that this move was not directly economically motivated, and as such I feel like this is an incredibly selfish move considering the amount of people employed at Irrational that will have to look for a new job.
On the other hand, I have grand hopes that we might see something very special come out of this, both with regards to the games that will be produced, and with regards to impact on the industry as a whole. More game studios will follow Irrational's lead and will see the long-term economic and artistic benefit of developing several smaller games in tandem rather than betting the farm on one big triple-A debacle. I also hope that this will restructure the industry to (ironically) become a more stable one to work in.