Yep, I know all that. I think where we are having a misunderstanding is that you perhaps don't understand the current situation, you say:
"What i was suggesting is that once this happens and the @me.com address becomes free, they may allow it as an apple id and you (in theory) could use that @me.com address as your apple ID (Which you can't do at the moment"
My understanding is that you can use your mobile.me address as an Apple ID at the moment. I can log into iTunes quite happily using my mobile.me address (well, I enter it, and it says "This Apple ID has not yet been used with the iTunes store. Please review your account information", and allows you to set up an iTunes account for that Apple ID).
The problem is not that you can't use a mobile.me email address as an Apple ID (when you set up a mobile.me account it automatically creates a new Apple ID with your mobile.me address), the problem is you can't change a pre-existing Apple ID to your @me.com address, because it is already assigned to a different Apple ID.
So, what I have are two Apple IDs, one for my mobile.me account and also my pre-existing one.
I know that when mobile.me merges into iCloud my mobile.me account will become an iCloud account, but all my iTunes purchase history is linked to my other Apple ID. So, will I have to continue having two Apple IDs (and iCloud accounts, and presumably @me.com addresses, if I get a free @me.com address with my non-mobile.me Apple ID when I set up an iCloud account for that) or will I be able to merge, or link, my mobile.me Apple ID with my older Apple ID.
Like you, I don't know what the answer will be, but I suspect it will, sadly, be a no, and I'll be stuck with the two Apple IDs.