I'm fitting my Wiinja tonight, not too bothered to have missed out on the "updateability" of this chip. Have an x-box 360 too (Hitachi) and if you look at how much development has been made on the 360 firmware in the last year (basically just the ability for Sammy owners to play x-box 1 backups and comestic tweaks) it's apparent that you can only do so much with DVD firmware.
I can't see any updates for this chip any much more functionality than it already has. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be very surprised if a DVD firmware hack would ever support region free gaming, so wouldn't buy this chip in the hope that one day will enable region free. If and when region free comes, chances are you'll still have to open up your box, remove whatever chip is in it and put in another one.
If you're afraid you may have D2B or D2C Panasonic chipset and don't won't to open up until you have the chip in your hand and can't wait, buying this one is a no-brainer.