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Some of the big mining pool operators are already going their own way, experimenting with new types of transactions (e.g. deepbit and eligius), so I suspect the answer to your question "Can 'we' please hold off..." is "No."
Discussions like this one are how I start to understand parts of the protocol like nLockTime and transaction replacement better.
As for BIP 16 draining effort away from making the standard client scale: I've been saying for a year that my top priorities are network stability and wallet security. Making the standard client scale is, in my opinion, a lower priority; I don't want a super-scalable client with a 4-minute blockchain initial block sync time if it is vulnerable to the user clicking one wrong link and getting infected by a trojan wallet stealer.