If inits were publishing feeds that might cause significant centralisation. Inits were voted in because there were not enough delegates updated to current version.
Unless there are enough serious delegates willing to do their job - inits cannot be removed (without hurting the network).
Even now there are people (including me) running multiple delegates and still there aren't enough people willing and able to be decent delegates.
Yes and no. I've only noticed the 're-rise' of the init's to the top 101 in the last day or three. I can see a good number of standby delegates below the 101 threshold that are advertising 0.4.18.
If whoever's responsible wants to make more btsx, that's fine. They own the stake and that's how the game works. I'm cool with that.
No need to make version excuses though. Active delegates have to upgrade or they'll be on a fork before they know it.
I find the truth ... cool.
prob due to timezones, I was (one of) the first to make it to 0.4.18 RC1 according to bitsharesblocks.com.