And CCP promising stuff tends to work out well for everyone involved.
I got a response from Seagull out of this on an AMA a while back, and it does seem like she wants to make EVE have something of a living world. Consider that she's only been in for about 2-3 months, and we've already had a reasonably successful event - already a change from the massive dry spell following CCP's last disastrous event. So, I'll remain cautiously optimistic that if the popularity of these events hold up, we might actually get to see some world activity.
The thing that concerns me is the lack of general background stuff happening. The Gallente election should be happening shortly, yet we've not heard a peep out of anyone - no candidates, no issues, nothing.