Thankyou jeff for that detailed and helpful reply.
The longer term prospects at least in theory look good. However I understand 1837 to 1958 should have been digitised and online by early this year and no sign of it yet.
My personal disappointment at this stage is in no new death records for 2007 onwards or at least not yet as I have found these helpful in discovering dates of birth and locations for relatives who have been elusive in tracking down when born and their last location.
This new change has had no real publicity so I was trying to make people aware by my posting.
I am heartened by the last line of your post in that overall things should be (eventually) more accessible!