They would probably need to invest a lot more in a larger test environments if they switched to a patch system. Would need to work on recognizing interim versions between patches. Patches can mess things up pretty badly if they're not done properly. The code has to be structured in such a way that makes it easy to modify modules. Right now it's kind of like one giant program. I don't think they'll have much with all this MU stage 2 and PM module for several years.