Eh, I suppose...but then again it would kind of take away meaning from all the past terminator movies, ya know? The fact that he was "dead anyway"...I don't know, it would feel like sort of a loss to me.
I guess another good twist is that we know John Connor DOES die. If you remember, the Terminator sent back to John in T3 was actually sent by his lieutenant (who happens to be the girl he was with) -
after it killed John in the future.
So he does die, but yeah, in the future.