Microsoft tidbits - More friends and longer cycle

I thought I'd collect a few smaller news items that had to do with Microsoft in one post. So here we go...

Aaron Greenberg told Joystiq that Microsoft are working on increasing the 100 friend limit on Xbox Live. My question: What's the freaking hold up?

Another Microsoft big shot Robbie Bach told Mercury News that they are in no hurry to start the next console generation. "Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient. The life cycle for this generation of consoles — and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well — is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."

MTV Multiplayer notes that community developers still don't have sales numbers on how their titles are doing. Apparently developers wont be able to track the sales of their community games until March. My question: How is this even possible? Aren't the developer receiving any of the money used to buy these community games? Or perhaps they're getting paid waaaaaay later.