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...because they are hopefully busy with SD70ACe and some other modern stuff - hopefully !
it is enough if two manufacturer like LifeLike and Athearn are producing steam engines - we do not need more steam - or are you all building museums and memorials on your layouts ? 
Marry, sirrah, I humbly beg your pardon, but it doth appear to me that you have it reversed. We have far too many modern diseasels and not enough decently operating small to average sized steam locomotives. Athearn and LL have focuxed on large steam locomotives, of late. Yes, Athearn does offer the old MDC line, and they are good locomotives, but they are nineteenth century power. I have a few for my small nineteenth century pike and even a few on my transition era pike; those would be 'updated' moguls.
LL has issued a 2-8-8-2 and a berkshire. Athearn has issued a 4-6-6-4 and has announced a 4-8-8-4. Those are good for N-TRAK and for those who have basement empires, but they do not do much for most home pikes. True, WKW (ex-LL) has announced a USRA 0-8-0, and that does fill a rather noticeable gap, but N scale still lacks a decently operating, smaller passenger locomotive. The MP pacific is full of problems and the eight-wheeler, while an improvement, still has its weaknesses. There is no atlantic and no decently operating pacific. On many roads, the pacific represented the zenith of passenger power development. Why N scale still lacks one that operates decently is a mystery to me.
The gaps that are out there in small N scale steam are:
prairie
Atlantic
ten-wheeler
twelve wheeler
pacific
You could add a mogul, as that gap only has what might be described as 'temporary plugs'. The Athearn MDC mogul has sixty three inch drivers and it lends itself well to updating. There are complaints that it has a tender drive and that the tender appears to be on stilts, but it operates well. The MP mogul actually operates well, but,
only if you put a Kato or Bachpersonn SPECTRUM USRA Standard tender behind it. Those tenders are all wheels live; try to find either. Kato is sold out. B-mann will send you one if they have any that they can pull from returned SPECTRUM locomotives. That makes it hit-or-miss. Another possibility might be to buy a Kato caboose and hardwire it to the MP mogul and run it as a 'safety caboose'.
Some may be building museums on their pikes, but there are those of us who actually like to model steam locomotives in revenue service. Huge autoracks, TopGons, well cars, SD-103biGmaCAtTacKs,
GP-47-abcdefgdashsixteens, BqSR-38s are what some people want, I understand that, but they do not do much for others of us. For some of us, nothing,
but nothing says
RAILROAD like a steam locomotive.
Many of us chose N scale because of limited space. We can not run hudsons, berkshires and articulateds, they look rather silly pulling a dozen or so freight cars or one or two passenger cars and an express car. Prairies, ten-wheelers and even pacifics look allright doing that, though.
Sad thing about the first runs of the LL 2-8-4, though, is that it will not pull more than eight
emptycars and a caboose, all on MT or AccuMate trucks, up a one-per-cent grade. Supposedly, WKW has addressed that in subsequent runs. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny.
A USRA heavy pacific would be a logical extension of Kato's USRA heavy mikado. They are pretty close, perhaps a few lines on a computer altered would produce one?
