[lordoftime]

Ive honestly never heard the rumor that Eccleston and McGan were ever meant to be the same incarnation. But listen. the limit can be worked aroun. If the writers could do it for the Master, then they can do something similiar for the Doctor. Only something more ethical than the way the Master managed to stay around.

When and if the time comes that the Doctor reaches his so-called last life onscreen, I am sure it will be addressed then. But it is still too premature to worry.

Besides, some of the 1980s continuity seems to already have been retconned for the sake of the new series, just as the 1980s stories seemed to rewrite ideas seen in the earlier decades of the program. so why worry over what the Peter Davison Doctor said in Mawdryn Undead and elsewhere?

I mean Patrick Troughton's Doctor DID once say he or his people could live forever, barring accidents. So it depends what story you are inclined to take as gospel over the others that deal with the subject.