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It seems to me that the most important feature of Output Areas for 2011 is that they are for reporting of output from the 2011 census data. To restrict them to a geography that will be 10 years out of date by the time the new census data starts to become available and 20 years by the time the data is replaced, undermines the value available from the census. Very little other official data is available at OA level, so time series analaysis is restricted anyway, for that it would be better to allow the OA's to be redrawn but restrict them to middle level SOA boundaries.
I would also say that this is why I totally agree with David Martin's comments that the use of ward boundaries cannot be seriously, considered they are simply too unstable.
I am also concerned that there does not appear to be details of how OA change will be allowed under the 'stable' option and whether there is a commitment to keep average OA size the same. Will OA's that are now too small for disclosure control be added to one other neighbouring OA (increasing the average size of OA's) or split between several (in which case what will be the basis for doing this)? Similarly if an OA grows and is now double the limit will two OA's be created by splitting the original? Whilst what happens if two neighbouring OA's grow, but not sufficiently to split will they be sub-divided to create a third?