With new toons, such as Admiral Raddus, there is a definite schedule of marquee event, then shards available in packs for $$, then for crystals in the stores, and eventually will be on a node (after about a 3 months, while Conquest toons appear elsewhere in a year).
For R9 materials all we have is that they are available in $50 packs and in TW. We do not know if or when they will be available for crystals in the stores or in Conquest or some other event. There is no information about any schedule for wider distribution. If they would just tell us more information then we would at least have something to look forward to and more people may stay with the game.