Well, regardless of what date you consider for LW last release (I personally stick with August 9, 2015), Siggraph 2017 is very near and we should hear some 'revelations' about LW's next release.

Lately I have been watching some of the gazillions of LW's tutorials on Youtube, and many of them are truly eye-popping. Although if you are a Mac user, my recommendation for a Carrara replacement would still be Cheetah3D, not Lightwave.