When are retirement dates for certification MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7 and MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7?

Question

Hi,
So what's the current situation with the MCIPT certifications in Windows 7?
MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Support Technician on Windows 7
MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator on Windows 7
The certifications had previously been scheduled to retire in July 31, 2013.
Then that deadline was extended and they were due to retire in January 31, 2014
Presently, the certifications are listed on the ever unhelpful Microsoft Learning website
MCITP page and the
windows certifications
page.
In typical Microsoft Learning unhelpfulness there is a bland, confusing and uninformative statement saying
"Most MCITP certifications will be retired by July 31, 2014. Please check the
retired certifications and
retired exams pages for specific retirement dates."
Naturally, Microsoft aren't being specific about which MCITP certifications are being retired.
To be more obstructive and confusing, us poor learners are invited to check the retired certifications page, which only lists certifications that have already retired,  for information about when a certification
will retire in the future. I have seen this done repeatedly in this forum and on borntolearn.mslearn.net in reply to questions about future certificate retirement, which is totally useless and perhaps deliberately deceptive, as the exam aren't
being discontinued and there's no info about future certification retirement.
There has previously been actual helpful information on the Microsoft learning webpages with statements explaining that whilst in a transistion between the older style MCITP and newer MCSA certification for Windows 7, that both certification titles will
be awarded until x date, when the MCITP will be retired and the MCSA will be awarded only. I can't see anything like that on the site at the moment.
I'd be most grateful if
anyone can link me to a Microsoft press release / blog / webpage that announced the scrapping of the January 31, 2014 deadline (as I must of missed this announcement)
anyone can give an update on the current Microsoft thinking about when this certificate will retire? Especially any links to announcements.
are both MCSA and MCITP certifications still being awarded?
advise what's the best way of staying up to date with multiple changes to exam and certification retirement announcement? (apart from borntolearn, which is awful and again, just directs back to the retired exams/certifications pages)
Many thanks everybody!
edit: formatting and spelling

Answer 1

Why choose a near retiring credential ?  
* Have ever you applied for a job with keyword requirements ?  Employers can be (and have been) insanely specific. (Then again that sort of gatekeeping for employment usually guarantees a fresh batch of pathological liars are your applicants, but I digress.)
* Also could be on a time deadline, e.g. contract bid requires x number of people to be certified, CompTIA requirement deadline could be arriving, and so on.
* Taking 2K08 exams when working in a 2K08 environment is probably easier than jumping into the next version without any access to it (other than building your own virtual servers or labs).
My current employer uses 2K08 not 2K12.  There are also 2K03 servers still in production (eventually being phased out). 
I don't know what the stats are today but (in 2012) 2K08 was leading over 2k12 in market share.  
I thought that's what truly drives these exams' and certification's availability.