Minion is a downloader and Updater for addons here on WoWI.
It's been designed around the ability to incorporate "Modules" created by other sites in the hopes of making a unified Updater. (As I understand it that is )
Yes, WoWI has released for BETA testing it's new updater which can be found here: http://minion.mmoui.com/.
Remember it is BETA so it has some bugs. Also the programmer is working his butt off trying to get everything fine tuned, but he also has real life things he has to do so his time is limited for working on issues.