So any updates? I heard the league was supposed to do something BIG to compete with MLS

I think you heard wrong. Right now a couple USL teams are trying to buy into MLS (Vancouver and Portland) and others are deciding when to fold to get out of the way of MLS (Atlanta and Miami). Rochester just avoided possibly losing its owner as some stadium funds finally came through. The collection of small and medium markets like Charleston and Cary (Raleigh) are in no position to compete with MLS and their $100million+ stadiums in most of the top 10 markets.

Tim Holt had a Q&A session. Actually he stated in Part Two of the Q&A that the league was supposed to do something BIG in 2009

I suppose the hope is that Nike after buying UMBRO and thus the USL league office (but not the individual teams) will put up cash to help the league rival Adidas backed MLS. It hasn't happened, there has been little talk about it lately, and I doubt it'll ever happen.

Other than that I can't really imagine what "big" move would be in the works, at least regarding rivaling MLS. Some teams wanted to require a buy-out fee for any team leaving for MLS but that didn't happen this offseason. Teams could step up and outpay MLS for 2nd tier guys coming out of college (the late 2nd and early 3rd round draft picks - the Jay Needham's) but I'm not sure that'd be "big". Something big would require a large amount of new money coming into the league.