I note that certain language on
Get Lion in July. Only from the Mac App Store.—including that page title—hints that Lion will be available, eventually, in a more traditional form:
Just make sure you have what you need to get your hands on Lion the minute it’s available...
...To upgrade on day one:
Cynics among us might theorize that the point of not being more forthcoming about other options is to sell a bunch of copies of Snow Leopard in June, but it's also possible that Apple is simply allowing the early birds to skip the manufacturing/packaging/distribution lag between Golden Master and retail disc. (Since no date in July is specified, that probably means we're not quite at the Golden Master stage yet.)
In any event, it's clearly in Apple's interest to drive as many Lion purchasers as possible to the Mac App Store: a) to realize the Snow Leopard sales from folks running Leopard on Lion-worthy hardware; b) to reduce production/distribution costs of physical media as much as possible; and c) to maximize the PR value of 100,000 (or however many) sales on day one! all without leaving your home! or even having to enter credit card data!
