what's interesting to me is that all these full blocks that have been coming more frequently and consecutively have not caused any block delays. that is good news b/c there are some who thought that as we filled the 1MB limit, there might be delays and have pointed to just this mechanism in the past when we've had such delays. so we know 1MB blocks don't slow down the network. so just how high can we push this limit w/o breaking it?
what's also really interesting is that currently, i'm not seeing any 0 tx defensive blocks being mined. maybe the Chinese miners are figuring out that it's not necessary. that's more good news b/c we want them munching as many tx's as possible in a consistent manner.
and that's good news b/c they are probably figuring out that a block size increase can't hurt them if done in a "safe" way, whatever that means.
I think that if we see blocks fill up and the network starts functioning poorly, we are going to see a change pushed out far quicker then any of us ever imagined.