I haven't heard anything on the grapevine about a new SCWCD exam yet and I'm pretty confident Sun will wait until
Java EE 6 is stabilised to add new features therein (like removal of the deployment descriptor in favour of annotations). I'd be very surprised if they removed JSPs totally as I think it's pretty fundamental that they are known---after all, the frameworks usually depend on them and as you say, JSP is good to have as a backup option in whatever you're doing.
The current SCWCD tests almost everything in the Servlet, JSP and JSTL specs. So it's a very complete
test of the platform with emphasis on its vital parts. I struggle to see how they could put JSF in the exam without removing something, which would also entail removing vital parts of the platform specifications. We also have the issue that many developers prefer
Struts (or any other framework you choose) over JSF, so including it on the core exam might be unpopular.
I would guess that (a) JSF would make its own exam with SCWCD as a prerequisite (unlikely?), (b) some part of the current SCWCD will be dropped to make way for a large section of JSF but this certifies candidates less against core ideas, (c) a new exam will remove one section (like JSP documents or old JSP scripting elements) and replace it with "JSF basics" only.
Option (c) seems feasible, but we'll really need to wait until at least mid next year to find out I'd guess. Anyone more in the know is welcome to update me!
