Hi Anders
No doubt you have paid a very pretty penny to your local Meridian PP to purchase your new 818v3 and DSP8000SE's.
Surely they should be willing to expedite these firmware updates by coming to your place and performing them FOC... seems the least they can do, given the short time span between delivery and then release of new firmware... which is what will allow much of the new Functionality of the 818 and D8kSE's.
A friendly but firm phone call to your PP might help get these updates done in a much quicker manner... and given the prices of your new and previous Meridian kit, I really don't feel like it's too much to ask of them.