Things is, it doesn't sound feasible at all, because you're right. It'll take away what the PS3 is supposed to be, a multimedia, entertainment machine. No HDD means you can't save pictures, videos, songs, etc, which console CONSTANTLY tries to beat into our heads in order to give the PS3 a perceived value. And no online out of the box simply kills any strides Sony made on improving the PSN. PSN isn't "free" if you have to buy some accessory to connect to it.
Things like HDD, wireless, and ethernet are so unbelievably cheap, that taking them out makes this rumor seem implausible. Wireless cards cost $14.99 new. Ethernet cards cost like $5. And small scale laptop HDDs cost anywhere from $50 to $70 depending on size (especially with sizes going up so high. A terabyte only costs $100. Something so miniscule as 40GB should be way cheaper than what I said.)
For them to rip out those cheap things, all the while trumpeting that the PS3 is a media hub would be the largest scale showing of hypocrisy ever exhibited by any company in the history of ever
