I would give CLARC at CASA a call and ask for someone in Engineering licencing and find out what the deal is with the new system coming in, and if in fact you can still just sit the 10 + exams (depending on what ticket you want) and build up your SOE and if it can still be done under the old system..
I'm not too sure how they are doing the whole B1/B2 licence thing now.. Time will tell I guess..