Quick Post On IE exploit and Botnets

So we have seen it posted to our favorite RSS feed, Botnets are creating Automated SQL injection attacks attempting to exploit the new IE XML issue (Microsoft Technet Article). This issue has been beat to death within Blogs, but I just wanted to make a quick observation.

Are botnets laying low until a severe 0day exploit hits the public, or do they just go into overdrive. With all of the talk about the economy, we are led to assume that when the economy has trouble, they hackers come out, but lately I have seen a decrease in automated SQL injection attacks. I have seen this decrease both within McAfee and by viewing items such as Google Safe Browsing Lists.
Will this continue to decrease? What will provoke it again? How will it evolve? How big of an impact will the economy have? Can we use history as a guideline?