Yes, further improvement of sss is planned.
No separate skin shader.
What newest method? What such properties?
This time, sss has its drawbacks. The skin is not like the skin, rather it is a mixture of silicone and plastic. Is it possible in our time to bring sss to a photorealistic level, so that skin looks like skin? And do you have a goal to achieve photorealism sss?
What do you mean by bring SSS to a photo realistic level...when you learn how to use it, it can become photo-realistic. As for now i think you are a noob in Arnold and don't know how to use it...this are examples of renders done with Arnold
Yes, these are good results. But it is precisely about this that I am saying that it is not photo realisistic. We still see that it is a cgi. That is why the question interests whether steps are being taken to ensure that cgi characters would be very difficult to distinguish from real people.
I know these are high expectations. I do not want to say anything bad about the anold, this is still my only favorite render engine, as it is easy to use and gives it achieves impressive results. But so far not with organic substances like human skin.