Why do you need to wait for MIDI 2 for more channels?
With MIDI 1.0, if I'm midifying a full orchestral score, I sometimes use up to 96 channels via 6 ports through my DAW.
With 6 copies of orchestral VSTs running.
As far as I can see MIDI 2 works the same way; clusters of 16 channels via multiple "groups".
Using a piece of software called LoopBe30 I could currently, theoretically, have up to 480 channels via 30 ports.
I'm sure my trusty laptop would throw a wobbly though if I tried that many.