All il2 games in the past have merged, I do not see them changing this. I do see them selling it firstly as a stand alone game with the ability to merge both and then as with all il2 incarnations, a gold pack with an udated merge patch forcing players to buy both at a later stage normally six months after release
One hopes the SDK is released soon and modders can get active fixing (maybe fixing is too harsh a work, lets say creating )what needs to be fixed. It is just sad to think that I still fly il2-1946 with it's mods more than I fly it's replacement.