A Microsoft .NET XQuery Implementation: When?

To me at least, the question now seems to be 'When?' rather than 'If?'

My reasoning:

SQL Server 2008 will ship with what is still a cut down version of XQuery
LINQ has already been released to much acclaim/marketing with Visual Studio 2008 / .NET 3.5

With these two significant releases out of the way, there is now nothing further to hold up a full XQuery 1.0 implementation in .NET. An attempt at an earlier XQuery move that overlapped with these 2 products would have had potential to cause significant confusion, and a few headaches for the marketing guys.

There are of course a number of other factors that will weigh on the decision-makers minds:

1. Oracle's Out-Sourcing of XQuilla
2. The now significant number of serious 'Industrial-Strength' XQuery implementations. XQuery has achieved 'Critical-Mass'
3. Making full use of the LINQ to XML/XSD and SQL Server XQuery talent-pool while its still 'fresh'
4. .NET 3.5 is now significantly better placed for impementing incremental changes to standards through extension methods (as used by LINQ).

This raises of course a number of follow up questions, these are just a few:

1. Would a .NET implementation now make much difference to the uptake of XQuery?
2. Would a .NET XSLT 2.0 implementation come at the same time?
3. Would this be too too late for Microsoft anyway, have they missed the boat?

This is of course only a personal view, and I may well be wide of the mark. But to me the timing seems about right...