Update on Treo 700p Patch

Over the past 2 nights, I have corresponded with Paul Loeffler, Palm's Manager of Public Relations. As usual, I have been chewing on Paul's ear regarding some 'real' news about the maintenance updater for the Treo 700p.
Paul sent me an initial email stating the following:

"On the maintenance release, it will address the issues we disclosed earlier in Steve’s (Sinclair, the Product Manager for Palm OS Treos) letter. Regarding the timing for the maintenance release, we aren’t able to provide you with a specific date (current availability is April). It’s not that we are keeping it secret from you. It’s that it isn’t done until it passes all our tests, and then passes the certification process at a carrier. It’s possible that the carrier might find something we hadn’t discovered in our testing, and so, it comes back to us for further revisions. So you see that it would be pretty unwise to set expectations when we can’t control all the elements. Sometimes we feel pressured to estimate a date, but we always know that we do it at some peril. The last thing we want to do is set false expectations."

I was concerned about the "...issues we disclosed earlier in Steve’s letter..." part. If you recall, the redoubtable Mr. Sinclair wrote:

"The last issue mentioned in the letter is a lag seen when switching between apps which is apparent to upgrading customers who are used to faster response times on other Treos or Palm handhelds. This lag is noticeable for some because it is taking longer than desired for the databases of the previous application to close and the databases of the next application to open. Aside from working with 3rd-party developers to minimize the lag while switching to/from their apps, there isn’t much we can do to alleviate this as it is partly a result of the shared hardware design between the Treo 700p and Treo 700w/wx."

I sent Paul a follow-up nag, and asked him point-blank, if he meant that the patch would not address the 'lag' issue, and here is is reply:
"The maintenance release will mitigate the lag issue with a solution that improves some aspects, but not all."

There was one other aspect of the communiques that raised a red flag for me...
Just a few weeks ago, a Verizon spokesperson flatly denied that anyone save Palm, Inc. decided when a maintenance patch would be released. Over the past 2 days, I showed Paul's email to the PR people at both Verizon and Sprint, asking for a comment. In a nutshell, they ran for the exit door. Verizon is stalling, and Sprint (which has been very open with me for years), said they had to refer it to an 'executive' before making any comment.

So, we'll wait, and hope for the best...because that's about all 700p owners have going for them at right now.
At this point, I've given up all hope of Palm, Inc. ever stepping up to the podium, and 'fessing up about the design flaws which precipitated all of these pervasive issues. Apparently, they're just going to ignore it (and the 700p owners), until it all goes away, or gets upgraded...whichever comes first.

Caveat Emptor, baby!