I think mid motor is the current "trend", whether it's better in all circumstances is very much open to debate. It brings with it some positives, but like everything, also some negatives. There is just 1 conversion available at the moment, who knows, maybe there will be more 3rd party options available some time soon.
Ae doesn't "tend" to do the yearly update cycle that some other manufactures do. Yes, 7 - 7.1 was less than a year actually, but i think that wasn't the norm. In truth, you could argue that 7 was already "out of date" by the time it was released, as many other manufactures had made the jump. Also, I think it probably sold more kits than they were expecting, hence the very quick update cycle.