I was wondering if this would happen when I saw they were reviewing it. My official position is that they will purposefully manipulate the market by approving an ETF right at the end of the year. Get all those free capital gains taxes once again.... except this time the money is coming from Wall Street so no one's going to be able to evade those taxes.
I maintain that the SEC is corrupt to the core. They don't care about market manipulation. They've already manipulated the market themselves several times.
I actually believe they do try to protect the average investor, though not always going about it the right way. Though I will be the first to admit that some Wall Street players seem to have close ties with the SEC. I hope you are right though, an ETF approved before the year ends would be nice!