The wait for 4.5 users was a little different I think.
There was no announced flashcard, people were just hanging around on 4.5 because there was a known exploit, there was never any guarantee of something coming to start with, so nothing to be excited about/waiting. People were just sitting on 4.5 because there was no need to update, unless you wanted access to eshop for the crap that's on there or just had to be on the latest version.
By the time a game with 5.X was out, Gateway was known. People got just as excited about the cart and the fact they were on 4.5 as people on 9.2 are getting now. The X amount of time before that was not really the same, as we had nothing to be excited/impatient about.