Yeah it caught me off guard. The main thing with Apple Silicon is the GUI differences from Intel Mac and Windows, so I wrongly assumed that because VEP was a modern looking application that the GUI framework was portable to Apple Silicon in a timely manor. For instance Arturia upgraded their plug ins for VST3 and resizable GUIs previous to Apple Silicon being announced, so it was obvious they would be light years ahead of NI who had old GUIs and frameworks for them from in some cases 15 years ago according to their reps. That's not the case though, they obviously have some lower level stuff to deal with, like how NI waited so long they're dealing with VST3, Apple Silicon and resizable GUIs all at once.
Arturia and Audio Ease are the big ones on my list left now.
Developing a stable VST3 host that plays well with most VST3 plugins isn't easy apparently. A lot of developers dislike the VST3 standard and the forced transition to it was very problematic for many of them.
For me VEP doesn't inspire much confidence lately. After the switch to iLok I keep seeing a lot of new issues - on top of the long-standing problems of VEP7 - on this forum and elsewhere.
I'm disappointed because VEP is a mission critical software for a lot of professionals. This should be the biggest focus of VSL.
Another unfortunate thing that didn't help is that the "big guys" already have 2019 Mac Pros so the pressure isn't as strong. If Apple had moved to AS without releasing the 2019 MP the story would be a lot different with much more complaints and drama.