I agree with you and wrote an article about this issue recently.
Maybe we don´t see an ETF in the very near future but we wil somewhere down the road, in Feb. 2019 or March 2019 as you said.
If you ask me the reasons for rejecting ETFs btw isn´t market manipulation, it´s the fear of bitcoin becoming dominant.
Maybe you guys would like to read what I´m thinking about #btc 👉etf:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@elevategroup/real-news-fake-news-and-the-truth
I doubt that is it. They look at strictly from protecting investors. There are lots of things to not like from their perspective.