Ok, after informing the team of my status and waiting an additional 24 hours, I've got a slight status update to release to you all re: 1.2.2 update / hard fork.  

After running numerous tests, we basically have 3 options to make this fork happen that have succeeded in every single test run I've done.  I have 3 separate builds of the wallet with which I've been testing, all of which are release-ready as of about 3 hours ago, each one implementing a different technique for making this reward drop a reality.  I've also been brainstorming some additional ideas with which to extend the longevity of the mining period and after this fork is complete I'll be speaking with the team about it and we will likely hold another poll to see how the community feels about these changes.

We are slightly (a couple of days) behind schedule now due to some unforeseen issues that came up during the testing/debugging period, but I'm happy to report that we're back on track, and as soon as I have had the chance to meet with the rest of the team, we're ready to release the 1.2.2 wallet.

This wallet will be a mandatory update in any case as it will implement a new hard fork of the blockchain (this was unavoidable), however, which method we're planning to use to deploy said update is still up for team discussion.  This prevents me from releasing any information on the specifics for the time being.

Also, I've been looking at a target block window of ~96 hours (still a bit short for my tastes) for the hard fork block target.  I'd like to get some community input before I set a hard target block.  How long do you all feel is a sufficient period to allow for exchanges and pools to update?

Let me know either here or via PM, and I'll discuss your feedback with the rest of the team ASAP.

Apologies for taking so long, I just needed to be 100% ready before deploying such an important update.

Full changelog will be included with the wallet for anyone who "has to know" what's new immediately.

All of that said, it is currently 4:58 am here in US/Eastern, and I'm exhausted.  This release will happen some time after I've had a bit of rest to prepare for the chaos that is sure to ensue.