1. Maybe his feud with Ambrose will continue and they'll book 'em to playing hot potato with the belt back and forth, ala Miz/Ziggler with the title last year or Rock/Mankind with the WWF Title in '99. Or maybe there's merit to those rumors of Owens being Brock's opponent at Wrestlemania next year after all, and they want to get the belt away from him because they see no sense in having him carrying around a midcard title that he obviously isn't gonna defend when it comes to his match with The Beast.
2. Possibly. But given that the Rumble is in Reigns' home state next year, they may not have the same trepidation as it relates to another Rumble victory of his being shit on by the crowd goes. If he isn't in the title match, expect Sheamus to defend against either a returning John Cena or Brock Lesnar (which I very much doubt unless they plan to book Brock/Reigns II for Wrestlemania, and in case it wasn't already obvious enough, last night's beat-down of Triple H courtesy of Roman Reigns should make it pretty clear what their Wrestlemania plans for Roman are.)