Most people here on the forum are aware of the most glaring issue with this game: arena defense. The AI isn't getting any better so it doesn't matter that you'll have to simply invest in the characters you already have for the arena; they'll still be able to beat AI controlled new "meta" teams. You'll be in the same boat as most everyone else and it will take weeks if not longer for a new "meta" to happen.

People waiting for the concrete answer before investing in characters will take longer to develop their teams, some people crunching projections will get lucky and make it quicker while others will have guessed wrong and wasted their resources, and of course the people laying down cash will get what they need by investing.

Personally I don't see the glaring problem with combat as it is now, just unimaginative players all playing the same thing and then calling the developers to blame. We've seen that Ewoks, Rebels, Clones, Resistance, First Order, and non-themed turn meter teams can beat the "speed meta," so I can't believe any of the claims that combat is broken now. The main thing that's broken is the ranking system. A daily reset chess type ranking would be more telling, as long as something could be done about raising your score just by fighting more often (maybe limited to first or last 5 fights?)

I've used a lot of my time to analyze combat as it is and you'd be surprised how balanced things really are if you look at the model as a whole and not just one character at a time. There are innumerable possibilities for teams that can actually compete and changing the combat system may make it more obvious for people, but this forum community will create a stale level 80 meta with or without combat changes and call the developers to blame again.

The level hike will benefit the developers and, honestly, the combat fix won't. They spend resources to fix combat and they won't get more money for it. They could leave combat how it is and develop game modes in which they might get money, that would make the most sense. Why delay the level hike? That's foregoing profit.

I've invested roughly $100 in this game and I'm routinely number 1 at payout, a few times not even using fight refills or fight refreshes. My team isn't meta and many would claim I wouldn't be top 200 in their server, but that doesn't quite make sense when there are level 70 teams through the top 100+ of mine. That's just an aside to tell you I'm not drinking any EA Kool-aid and that this post isn't some big defense for them. I honestly believe we, the people of the forum, have more to do with the stale meta that we seem to have convinced the makers of the game is broken, when there is no one to blame but us.