There are no firm plans for when ME updates will be made, but I know for sure that on release day there will be the changes as per the top of this thread, plus possibly one or two more. After that, with steam then in theory we can update as and when we feel we are ready to. What we wont do is make promises we then find we cannot keep.
Yes its been a 2 year cycle but the decision to go with this ME instead of 12's was made in recent months. We knew it might be 2 steps forward 1 back initially but its the only way to get it to what you and we want it to be.