They recently announced that they will publish new exploits at DEF CON next week and recommend owners to not update their firmware if they want to take advantage of that.
So depending on how the exploit works installing Valerie might get a lot simpler. It usually takes quite some time until such exploits are not only fixed, but then also for devices with fixed firmware to hit the shelves.
I don’t think google fear Apple having to offer a choice to users. They fear Apple defaulting to Bing or something else.
While most people might choose google when presented with a choice, possibly more people are just going to keep the default settings when not presented with a choice.