I have to go back and browse the whole thread again myself, but be sure to read Mark's posts and perhaps keep an eye on that thread.
We have been preparing to open up a test shard with Factions changes. Currently work is being done in parallel with regular live publishes, so that the Factions system as-is won't be altered by the changes being made, until we're ready for full systems integration. This has some tricky code synchronization issues associated with it.
The most recent client patch included an alternate Felucca map with the new fortresses. We have the capability to activate that alternate map on a test shard. Once we're ready to playtest the Factions updates, the alternative map will kick in on the test shard.
Now that we're pretty much done with the current publish, we have begun development for the next publish, and are now able to shift some focus back to Factions. After we do enough internal testing to verify that the system changes are playable if not perfectly polished, and fix any issues we may find, we intend to open a Factions-specific test server and engage in focused conversation on these forums about the upcoming changes.
We absolutely intend to make sure these changes perform as expected and are as polished as time permits before rolling them out in a Live Publish. You can expect a lot of forum interaction from certain members of our development team on this issue. Once we go into public testing, I in particular will be MUCH more forthcoming with details, and will take in every bit of feedback you guys have to offer. (I have been lurking here daily, occasionally posting a small note here and there, but I haven't wanted to begin discussing the details of the changes and the theory behind them until you've had a chance to play with them. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a playtest is worth a thousand design documents...)
We're also planning on utilizing the Test Center forum for Factions playtest feedback, not this forum. Even though this is the Factions forum, it seems like a good idea to keep discussion of things in testing on the Test Center forum.
As always, we can't commit to specific dates. All I can say is, it will be in testing SOON! As soon as we can get it there.