See, though...I'm not saying specific dates. Hell, I'm not even saying GENERAL dates, necessarily. Just a nice, simple "Yes, we will be providing support for playable (AIs/Free Spirits/Drakes/What The Heck Ever) in 5th Edition" or "No, we will not be providing support for (Insert all that stuff again) in 5th Edition". I don't think that is in any way too much to ask for.
You have to understand a few things about this whole process. First off, Catalyst is hesitant to release any information about anything that will be coming out. Dates are only a portion of that information. Someone barely hinted at a date "at the end of summer" and it resulted in the forums exploding. Someone else previously mentioned that rigger stuff would be in a separate book from
Run & Gun and the forums exploded. The fans here are very supportive of Shadowrun - some of us have been playing this game most of our adult lives. So naturally we are very involved and even emotionally attached to the things we love. But inevitably that emotional attachment results in some really REALLY vitriolic, bile-filled, god-awful crap being slung around.
So the decision was made that Catalyst wouldn't talk about any future content. When someone even hints at future content, it can cause people to develop unrealistic expectations. And when those expectations aren't met, people go completely guano crazy. So when you see someone who works closely with Catalyst, like PeterSmith, saying that at some point content may exist to cover the things you may want to be covered... he's not kidding. It might happen - but it might not. At any point during the editing process, content can be cut out with a flick of a wrist. That's not to say that the decision to remove content is arbitrary, but rather that it's not hard to remove content.
Back a LONG time ago, I worked as a journalist. If anyone's keeping track of the jobs I've mentioned that I've done, I think we're up to about 500. I would get an assignment from my editor a week or so in advance of my deadline. I'd then work contacts, angles, etc. for about 5 of those days. I'd spend the 6th day writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing everything until I felt it was perfect. And then I'd have to write it over again because the editor didn't like it. And so there were times when my assignments came down almost to the wire, and when I turned it in and got the article green-lit, I would relax a little bit. And it might not appear in the next paper. There's millions of reasons why content can be removed, and it might happen at the moment right before printing begins - it's impossible to promise what will absolutely be covered at any given point.