[cesarb]

My impression from reading their announcements before the fork is that it had always been their intention, if the new coin had any value after the fork, to later allow all users to withdraw their "cloned" balance. The transaction freeze around the fork plays into this: not only it protects them against any instability, but it also is a convenient time to snapshot everyone's balance, and to keep a copy of the private keys for future use. They probably planned the balance and keys snapshot since before the first announcement, but just didn't want to promise anything (remember that for instance the fork originally didn't have strong replay protection, which was added just a few days before the fork).

Since the fork didn't die immediately, they are going ahead with the "allow everyone to transfer their BCH out" plan. Had it died, they probably wouldn't bother.