Well - I already have said I would like to see ARA integration, and I do not think that VariAudio is threatened by it. However - Seeing the above conversation I want to point out that I DO think VariAudio is one of the reasons it will take time to integrate ARA in Cubase.
The problem is that the developers must make sure ARA and VariAudio will play well with each other. Ditching VariAudio is simply not an option, because a lot of people (including myself) have a lot of projects where VariAudio is used. Also - I do not think a lot of people would be pleased to be forced to buy Melodyne, when Cubase already has some build-in completely free Melodyne-like stuff. As an (almost-ex) user of Sonar Platinum I got Melodyne Essential for free, but if I had not gotten that program for free I do not think I would not have bought Melodyne Essential as a replacement for VariAudio.
Anyway - The problem here is, that there is code in Cubase that handles VariAudio. I do not have any insight in how that support is coded, but I do not think I am far off when I guess there will be some big clashes when two programs (or pieces of programs) try to do the same thing at the same time. For instance - How would ARA handle audio that has already been altered by VariAudio (or VariAudio has to handle audio that has been altered by ARA). Do those two program pieces have to cooperate, or must audio handled by one program be excluded for the other. There have to be made major design decisions here. I do not say it will not happen (I am sure it will), but I do think it will take some time. Do not forget that those programs that already incorporated ARA, did not had anything like VariAudio, so it was relatively easy to integrate ARA for their developers.
So - At the end I think we will get ARA (and I would like to see that), but I do think that it will not be in the short therm (although I would not mind to be wrong here).