Announced by whom? What prevents that person from announcing it BEFORE "the vast majority of users to use the code"?
Nothing. It is still an official release for those who will decide to upgrade it and neutral for the rest. Aren't we deciding autonomously in this consensus based scheme? A change will always be official for certain users and won't affect the rest directly.
If Bitcoin Cash team decided to make a change, it wouldn't be unofficial to us; just neutral. If the Bitcoin developing team changed the source code, it'd be in our crisis to consider it official or not.
Am I missing something? I feel that I do.
Yes, I tried to emphasize it.
I don't think so, I think official is something that a lot of people just use incorrectly. What you are describing is what people have consensus agreed is the more appropriate path to take, but I don't think that makes it any more official than other suggestions.
I understand “official” as an agreed statement. No?