And I believe this is your real beef. And you are correct in that Nikon doesn't update their lenses nearly as often as they update their camera bodies. What is the average to wait for a camera body--one year or so?
Heck, Nikon still advertises AF-D lenses that haven't been updated in over a decade. Here's the list of their lenses.
Digital Camera & DSLR Lenses | All NIKKOR Lenses for Digital SLR Cameras| Nikon
And I agree that lenses in general (not only Nikon but also Sigma, Tamron, Canon, etc.) don't update their lenses in nearly a timely fashion as the camera bodies. Now whether that is due to marketing strategies or something else is beyond me. Is it because the lens companies have reached the upper echelon when it comes to lens design? What I mean by that is this--how much more can they improve on their lenses? There are always new developments when it comes to electronics, and those new developments always seem to appear in the camera bodies. But what new developments happen with lenses?
Sure it would be great to see a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 with VR. Sure it would be nice to see newer AF-S lenses. Seems like the real question here is why isn't Nikon updating their lenses more frequently especially the ones that are lacking AF-S and/or VR???