What is happening with the Downing Street e-petitions?

Screengrab taken today, 31 Oct 2010

The Downing Street website is no longer accepting petitions, with the site saying an improved petitions system will be launched later this year.  Given that the government has been in place for over 5 months now, there are only 2 months of 2010 left, and there was no great need for a new system, I hope there is no unnecessary delay and that people can submit petitions again soon.

Apart from anything else, it is good fun to see what the British public come up!

On a serious note, from a communications point of view once this system was launched it was always going to be tremendously difficult to go back on it without incurring a lot of unnecessary criticism.  So, the no.10 communications team may as well make the best of it.  Hiding from the public is unedifying.  If the new system is delayed for too long, people may start to suspect that is what is really happening and it would send a bad message that the PM and his team don't want to listen to the people.  I have to say, I'm surprised that there hasn't been more fuss about this already - the only thing I can find is this BBC article.