Pace
I get your drift, and agree that not doing the 14 exams much before 2014 is a reasonable decision - for a UK based private owner-pilot or a UK based "working pilot" like you are.
I did the JAA IR in 2011/2012 primarily because I considered that capturing the current 15hr IR conversion option was a reasonably prudent policy. Had that option been lost, I would have faced the full grim option of burning 50hrs pf my time and avgas into my logbook.
As it happens, that option has been technically lost, but it appears to be carrying on for the time being because nobody knows what to replace it with
The next factor behind getting this stuff in the bag is the existence of the question bank, without which the study workload goes up
massively. Particularly depressing as the theory is a good 90% useless garbage which was tossed out by the RAF in the 1970s due to lack of relevance and picked up by a departing RAF ground technician who then positioned it into the right place at the right time.
What I might not agree with you on is the BASA
even if we assume it will come. I simply do not believe that EASA will agree to a straight paper swap on FCL, perhaps with air law and radio comms exams. This would undermine everything that Europe stands for which is ripping off FAA regs and gold plating them to protect European jobs. It would severely damage the European FTO industry because all the young skint lads who desperately want to be airline pilots would sod off to Arizona and do their CPL/IRs out there and then come back here to convert them. Forget "aviation" and just look at the politics - that's always been the right way to see this stuff.
I don't think EASA will ever negotiate an FCL BASA in good faith - unless there is a huge prize to be had elsewhere, along the lines of the USA allowing Euro airlines to operate
internal US routes.
IOW, IMHO, the best BASA-assisted outcome will be something approximating the present 15hr IR conversion route, with the added risk of no QB.