It's about to happen, it seems. About the 1962 Missal, I mean.
From what I've read from Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict, this is the frame I'm seeing it in, and why it's important for us, not just for people with a special devotion to the 1962 Missal:
Pope Benedict has long been a critic of the way of thinking about and interpreting the Second Vatican Council that he has called the "hermeneutic of discontinuity." "Hermeneutic" is the Greek word for "interpretative [method]." He is making an analogy to the interpretation of Scripture, where there are potentially a number of legitimate interpretations, but definitely very many wrong and false ones. The devil can present his own deceptive interpretation of Scripture to vex and confuse as he tried to do to Jesus; so also people relying their own private judgment apart from the Church can decide on wrong and harmful interpretations, and they can be mistaken even when they feel like they are being led by the Spirit.
Specifically what the Pope criticizes is the interpretation of the Council that views it as a radical break with the past, a repudiation of the Tradition of the Church so as to start anew or recreate it as something different. This has caused confusion by convincing people to interpret certain of the Church's developments so as to impose misguided innovations in the name of the Council such that many of the real reforms of the Council have actually not yet been carried out, and to mistakenly interpret some of the Church's actual reforms and developments as breaks or ruptures with the past. The above link contains his own explanation and elaboration.
This mistaken interpretation of the Council is so embedded in our culture that many people take it for granted - they breathe it in and out without even noticing it. They might think the (supposed) break with the past is really great, or they might think it's really terrible, but either way, if that's how they're thinking, they fail to understand their relationship with the Church (which will have a detrimental effect on their spiritual life).
So, why the action with the old (1962 Missal) Mass? Well, seeing as how the Mass is the source and summit of the Christian life, and practically speaking is the main point of contact between most people and the Church, so long as people feel like the current state of affairs with the Mass is a radical break with the "pre-Vatican II Church," the pope can give speeches about hermeneutics of discontinuity all he likes without effecting any large-scale reform in people's thinking. Because as long as he goes that route, pretty much the only people who are going to hear him are the sort of people who read the texts of addresses to the curia or Wednesday audiences - people who probably already know what he's saying and agree with him. But - if instead of talking about how the Mass today (and by implication the whole life of the Church) isn't a break with the past [i.e. the period before the Council], he acts, and performs some powerful, impossible-to-ignore symbolic act that does the same thing, everyone will hear and get the message. It doesn't matter if you or I or most people don't actually end up going to 1962-Missal Masses. This is something so big and so obvious that even the New York Times and Time Magazine can't ignore it, and even though they will probably hardly be able to think outside of the box on this one (i.e. "turning back the clock," the Lefebvrists and whatnot), the people of the Church taken all together have a good theological sense and they will get it.
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