Who is going to bet against Michael Gray? I think that you should listen to him.
I would give his answer one tweak. He says....
If the product goes out of stock forever, you have a couple choices. You can leave the page up with a discontinued notice on the page. IMHO that’s not the best way to go for search engines. Ideally I’d like to not lose any link equity and 301 the product page to a similar product, category/department page, or home page.
I would do exactly what he says 99% of the time, however, if that page is pulling a lot of search engine traffic and same manufacturer has a replacement product or something close that substitutes, I would leave that page in place and use it to explain... "This product has been retired but a new and improved widget is available... (then give the sales pitch for the new model with a buy button). This approach would be especially valuable if the product is something like running shoes where repeat customers with very high loyalty are looking to replace their favorite shoes up to several times per year.
When this shoe was replaced by Addiction there was a mad scramble to buy up all existing stock... (I am probably only person posting here old enough to have worn out a couple dozen pairs)