When apple updates their products, they won't upgrade every-single-item-they-sell. They may refresh the item, but a robust upgrade may come next year.
The mini has proven to be wildly popular, so they will certainly upgrade it next year.
IMO, the mini 2 is already pretty awesome, I can't see any reason for stuffing it with a faster processor when that wasn't a bottleneck for most people
Definitely liking the direction that Garmin is going with their devices. After initially sticking solely with ANT+, they are starting to incorporate Bluetooth Smart and wifi
Good idea. Garmin Connect doesn't yet have an API, so I don't think that is possible. It's probably possible to do it with Strava, so I'll look into that.