That's because there are so few of us Type 1 diabetics and not enough political pressure to get the new stuff faster. There are some activist doctors and nurses that help in Germany, but we also got the G4 for free only on last November.

The insurance companies are conservative and see the systems as very expensive investments and the technology is something scary in a country which is still very suspicious about Internet and computers in general.

There were also some privacy/bureaucratic slow downs (my girlfriend had to sign a monster of T&C regarding data sharing with her doctor).