That is quite the reduction, and will be quite the reduction in potential costs for server hardware. How confident are you that the timeline will be able to be upheld? I know frequently estimates for development can be held up, even by tiny issues that were unforeseen, but there are conservative estimates and quite optimistic ones. If that estimate is able to be upheld, then it will only mean possibly one or two additional months before witnesses can reduce their costs considerably. That is quite good news.

As to SMT's...I'm not as optimistic that they're the golden unicorn people are claiming them to be. I'd prefer more community and curation related features be implemented. So, it's nice to see an SMT-lite is going to be implemented in the near future, but I think a lot more needs to be done.