It's a rumor at this point [1] but if they completely kill small screen phones on the next release I'll eat my hat. Since the 6 came out, I've noticed that smaller people of either gender really prefer the smaller screen size. There's a gigantic market for the 4" screen, Apple already has support for it in their OS, and they're not the type to throw away billions that people are offering them for this size of device.
Yeah, I'd love to see this. I'd even consider holding out with my 5S until whatever comes in 2016 if I could have an equally performant device in a smaller package.