Or they may be riding their/Jon's newfound enthusiasm for their work. He appeared to be extremely proud of THINFS. How many years do they have left? They may as well give it a go and release the next album as soon as possible. There was a 4 year gap between the release of TC and release of WAN, and yet only about 17 months between 7800 and SWW.

I actually hope Captain_jovi's speculation turns out to be true.