As someone who has vowed to never level BST past level one, even I can't help but feel bad for them after this announcement. Yeah, I think that trading Sic for Ready is a way of nerfing BSTs (and gettin you to be excited about it!), but I also have a feeling that the backlash will be so great that they might get something useful outta all of this in the long run. Hell, they even tell you that they will continue to monitor the situation, meaning, "Hey, we're gonna try this, and you'll probably hate it, but at least it'll be there for us to tweak when you bitch about it".
As for the SMN thing, it seems nice, and makes my BLM very happy (not as happy as a direct BLM adjustment, and Meteor, would, but I digress). I've gotta say that I think a new avatar would be announced immediately preceding the update, even if it is a SMN thing. It would involve something story-related most likely, and SE knows it would be the biggest thing they could announce for an update (aside from AV not havin two hours anymore or something), meaning they'd hold onto that info until the very end for suspense. In other words, don't lose hope.
