[JinDesu]

That Canon Rumors article is from 2010.. is there something I'm missing here?

No, we were missing a voice of reason like you.

Actually, imagine if VoiceofReason posted in here~

[Emacs]

2 all difraction worried: pixel should be less more then 2 times lower than a circle of confusion (difraction caused) to get everything from a lens
2 all noise worried: once just downscaled there will be no difference between this and lower mp contemporary sensor. But with modern time NR technics, what reconstructs an image rather than wipe out a noise, you, most probably, will get lower noise and higher resolution with more MP with NR->downscale pipe. Just, don't compare at the pixel level. It's techically and practically same size image comparison that is valid. Attempts to compare pics with different size are just amateurish at best (just stupid in fact)