email package status in 3.X?

I'm updating the current Programming Python for 3.X, as well as
its fairly large email client examples (GUI- and web-based) that
rely on the email package heavily.

I've gotten to the point where I need to decode the bytes of a 
message fetched with poplib into the Unicode strings expected 
by the email parser, and run into the dilemma--because decoding
may require headers inspection, it appears that scripts need to 
parse in order to decode, but need to decode in order to parse.

I know this is being discussed and may be addressed soon, but 
because the email package is crucial to this book's largest 
examples, I'm looking or a bit more information on this:

--What's the current ETA on a new version of the email parser
which handles byte strings?  The web suggests it might be 3.2, 
3.3, or even 3.4.  It seems to still be in early stages.

--How backward compatible will the new email be?  I'm assuming
it will handle bytes but be otherwise very similar, but 3.x set
quite a precedent for changes, and changes break books.

Any updates on this would be appreciated; for better or worse, 
email is a major dependency for one of the flagship Python books
out there.  Since postponing the update probably isn't an option,
I'm leaning towards decoding per a user-configurable default 
(latin1 or utf8?) for now, but that's less than ideal.

Thanks,
--Mark Lutz     

(feel free to cross-post if this belongs elsewhere, and please 
respond to my email address directly)