Well it seems the update about the ASMD & Flak Cannon making their ways into Unreal II (story) was not the final word on the subject, as a post on our forums (thanks ViX) points the way to a post on the Infogrames Forums by Legend Entertainment's Chris Hargrove that says while "as of now, these two weapons will *likely* end up going in, in one form or another (possibly only for multiplayer or something and not for single player, who knows)... but the fact is the verdict's still out." Here's a bit more from Chris' post:

Without trying to throw a slam at our PR people or anything, I'll merely say that Mr. Frary should have consulted us before making his statement.
The ASMD/Flak issues were in discussion between Legend, Epic, and Infogrames well before the topic was even brought up here on these forums. I'm not saying that we're ignoring the fanbase here or anything (we're certainly not), but by the same token, we've been considering these issues for some time now.

That said, the ASMD and Flak cannon *MAY* make it into U2, and the current trend in our discussions (which may have led Mr. Frary to jump to a conclusion here) is that they will... but this is not carved in stone.

The point of debate is the fact that even before the idea of reviving these two weapons came up, we've had new weapons of our own all along which perform similar functions. Not necessarily *identical* functions (some changes are aesthetic, others are gameplay related both in terms of originality and technical issues like network efficiency), but definitely similar.