diff increases never stopped, though they DID drop to an average of appx. 1.6% per increment for the first half of this year or so - despite NO new miners showing up in that timeframe.
I would estimate diff will see average 4-5% for the next 8-10 months as the "currently new gen" miners get widely deployed, then flatten out some for a while, then one last big "months of jumps" when the full-custom 14/16NM generation chips/miners start getting widely deployed, then a very LONG slow climb period after that as no new technology will be available for a while to push efficiencies up a lot.
what i mean is that there are long window of months where you can actually hope for a flat diff, and you can use those months to earn more, if you sell right away after those months end
and anyway the efficiency will not continue to improve as such rate, at some point tthe difference will be negligeable, and they would be forced to use something else than silicon