What manufacturers do is out of our hands. If they release drivers that don't follow the generally accepted E2 standard they won't work with our image. And we can't change the image so it complies with any manufacturers whims because then it wouldn't work with the drivers from other manufacturers that are doing the right thing. Also we don't change to a new image version because a manufacturer releases drivers. The new drivers are just added in to the current version and if they follow the generally accepted E2 standard they should work without problems.
No. Images are released when it is considered they are ready. They are only released after each model has been tested. And as not all testers have all boxes sometimes that process can take some time.