It would be perfectly reasonable to recover some of the money spent by Meridian on developing firmware updates by charging a reasonable sum for them. This could be done via an Internet shop and does not require dealer intervention. If I were them I would go down this route. Maybe this might be the "updated delivery mechanism".
Meridian's recent policy of decreasing the number of dealers will make the provision of updates a difficult and pointless exercise as hardly anyone will get it done. They will then stop development on the grounds that it is uneconomic. A self fulfilling prophecy.
Anyway, the unapproved firmware change is reversible isn't it?