Let's not forget that the whole roadmap to Casper, including the ice age bomb, was devised when ETH was trading round the $7–$8 dollar mark. The huge price rise and the tremendous expansion of the Ethereum Alliance might have changed the game completely.
@trimegistus I know you're a senior member but you may have missed the latest news. I'll post here for you and others. I don't mean any disrespect to Trim and I'm not even sure of the validity of the info I'm posting. Maybe we can get confirmation from a second source?
Casper is going to be delayed again. One of the ETH devs current estimate is end of 2018.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/6t56a0/important_information_from_todays_ethereum_dev/
The Difficulty bomb will be pushed back as well because of the Casper delays. (16-17 months delay)
ETH rewards will be decreased to curb inflation...