CX would be eaten alive by the Emirates fares structure etc
I don't know about that. CX cover a lot of places EK still don't go to, especially feeding into KA at HKG and their mainland routes. While I haven't seen what EK charge these days as I have no intention of using them, a colleague who does says they are not as competitive as they used to be.
Besides the fact that service wise CX are in a different league to EK so it's not really comparing like with like, especially up front.
Anyway it's all somewhat irrelevant as they won't be coming according to spannersatcx, and I tend to believe him more than the one who posted they were, again.