Is D&T Deemphasizing Auditing?

A Business Week interview with Barry Salzberg of Deloitte and Touche seems to indicate that the Big Four is putting heavy emphasis on the consulting side of their practice. Salzberg points out that the 150 or so MBAs hired each year primarily go into strategy, operations and human capital activities and that they need to be creative problem-solvers. Some of their favorite MBA programs for recruiting include Cargenie-Mellon, Cornell, Dartmouth (Tuck), Northwestern (Kellogg) and Penn (Wharton).

One wonders with the increased expectations of auditors based on SOX if even large CPA firms will move emphasis from auditing to consulting--and, if this does happen, how the "slack" will be filled.