The operator reports the cluster is available after handleDownNodes is called.  It makes a lot more sense it this only gets set when the cluster is fully scaled and provisioned from the view point of a client application – what's the point in trying to use a cluster that isn't finished yet, it's just asking for trouble!

Deferring to 2.1 as there may be a whole heap of assumptions made by the QE code that may cause people to murder me if it fails at the 11th hour.