I am not one of the people referenced above for those pull requests but I think your guess is correct. My guess is that additional GUI updates will happen after the database work by cryptozoidberg and clintar is done.
I was wondering the same thing. Those GUI discussion happened long ago but seemed to be forgotten about earlier this year. If you are right then it sounds similar to the Monero situation. They don't want to spend time making a new GUI until their db release is complete either.
The current lacks merchant tools (APIs, invoicing, etc). Make the new wallets useful as possible to those who will accept Boolberry payments.