I appreciate everyone's opinion, but I was hoping for a more factual response. ...
More to the point, rather than a fan discussion, it would be nice to hear what Larian is thinking...is 13+ a possibility?
That's not going to happen, sorry. Larian officials don't answer questions on this forum (or reddit or twitter), except for clarifications about recent patches or occasional bug reports, mainly relating to installation problems. The best way to get any official word from Larian seems to be having a large enough discussion on this forum or other social media, alerting Larian that topic X is important to the community, and then Larian might address it in a future Panel from Hell or patch video.