User blog comment:Godisme/The Gotei 13 repeat and reboot wrap up/@comment-893506-20120203045509/@comment-1393830-20120203060635

With the Fullbring Shinigami power merge, it is pretty clear from the way it looks that it merged. This interview says he sent the picture of the new shikai in months before the arc started so I think it is safe to say that is true. With the rest of the stuff, we don't put anything on an article until it happens.

And with the last interview, if I remember correctly, all it said was that Ichigo was never meant to have his Fullbring for very long and that his final Fullbring outfit was always meant to look better on Kugo than him, so nothing about the powers not merging.