They could be absorbed or do a reverse stock split, but they just engendered too much bad press

It sucks when a stock hits that level, but I've got a stock I picked up in the early 2000s, BPUR, that went from $5 to it's current level of less that $1. Plus, they did a reverse stock split to avoid delisting, and I just kept buying them*. The cool thing is, though, that now that they hover between $.50 and $1, it's pretty easy to buy more at their low point and sell for a decent profit near the top.
*They make an emergency hemoglobin replacement that's been used since 2002 for animals and is taking forever to get through the FDA for humans. As far as I can tell, they have a decent and legitimate business model, they just happened to IPO around 2000 when stocks took a nosedive.