Rumors always follow her around. How many times has she had an abortion according to them? I do feel though that allowing them to fester is just as bad as anything else however. No visibility and no releases of any sort on the horizon on top of no promotion doesn't really make for healthy release conditions.
It goes back to the interview she did about not really wanting to push herself as hard as she did before because she was really trying hard to do this or that or be different with every release. She still has it in her no doubt but I think she has to want to do it for it to happen again.
http://ahsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123587
This whole thing basically.
I think she could still probably do something for Xmas if she really wanted to. She's done random surprise releases in the past but never this close to the wire, I suppose. Zutto was announced the month before that Xmas eve?