Oh... my... god. I read that post and... now I know what is going on.
I now know the dirty secret of Gateway.
First I thought it was their evil plan to make us wait so long that we are willing to pay them extra for what they promised. But if you think they try to trick us into bribing them to release the update, I have to tell you that their plan is even more diabolic. Remember them posting about not needing extra hardware (except the GW cart) to pull off the exploit? They never said anything about software.

Initially, they might not have intended to charge us for using the exploit, but then they realized that all their potential customers bought their product already, even though it was not compatible.
Until Christmas their user base became so big that they decided to turn against it for profit.
But how, you may ask!? From SonyUSA we know what is needed for the new exploit to work: some QR codes and a connection to an external server, where the 3DS
downloads the Stage 1 payload.
All this evidence only leaves one conclusion.
They forged out the plan to release an Android/iOS App that you have to pay to get access to the new exploit.

That's what is taking them so long. It shouldn't be much of a problem to combine the process of downloading the Stage 1 payload with a Username/Passwort prompt.