It's not surprising that the OI/RC are out of stock until next season. These are high priced items. If I was at IFI, I wouldn't want to keep too many in stock for post season. The same thing happened with CIMs last year and the Vex Field this year. Once the main competition season is over, you don't have much demand for these expensive items. So why stock them? I'm sure if a team really needed an RC or OI IFI would have one.
As far as development goes, that would be another reason not to stock OI/RCs post season. If IFI changes interfaces or components, like a new PIC, it would make any models in stock obsolete unless it were a simple retrofit.
These are simply good business practices, not a clue to changes afoot.
With that said, IFI has always worked to improve these systems as technology improved or deficiencies have been found. The new PIC and more memory on this year's RC were in direct response to at least one team who ran out of memory and processing horsepower last season.
As for new technologies, the April IEEE Spectrum magazine had an article on wireless USB. Unfortunately, the IEEE committee working on standards for IEEE 802.15.3a ultrawideband (UWB) couldn't agree on a standard, so it looks like the competing technologies will launch soon and the market will have to sort it out.
Just think someday... wireless USB joysticks, wireless victors and spikes oh my!
