Makes me think that we all need the new Firmware from HF which has been announced to be "delivered soon" , Kinda depressing since Cgminer 3.12.1 has the code for using the Firmware however we wait and wait, its been 7 days and counting

The firmware is being tested and worked on. We absolutely don't want to give to stuff that breaks your gear or LOWERS your hashrate!
Please bear with us. It's not like we're sitting around doing nothing. The protocol guide is open-sourced, and we are going to actually open-source everything as soon as we can. Con's cgminer is also open-source. Feel free to write your own code anytime you like, and make look easy!
There are KNOWN BUGS with what are are testing now that we are working though. There are bugs in what you are running now too, but at least they keep hashing instead of dying off. What would you rather have?
-Phil