You can get long range with other chemistries too. To me the cooling is needed so you can use commodity laptop cells as a cost reduction/control method. How about $50K worth of A123 batteries?
I'd imagine once the technology is improved, or costs come down, Tesla should be able to make better (longer life, longer range, etc) battery packs that swap right in where the current ones lie correct?
I mean theoretically, the car I bought with a 160 mile range battery pack, could, in 5 years, go 600 miles with a pack swap later on.
If I were them, I'd make that known to folks who may be concerned about battery life and what happens in the end.