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“rebus sic stantibus”
That’s a good point, but I think that could be construed as hostile. There’s no need to tear-up the treaty or declare UDI. It can be done within the terms of their own treaty (Article 50) and this gives the other parties the due time to make whatever adjustments they need - such as patching the massive hole it will leave in their budget.
Otherwise they will have an excuse for blaming Britain for anything that goes wrong in the rest of the EU.

Calling Article 50 doesn’t affect any negotiations at all - it sets the default exit date two years on IF it hasn’t completed prior or negotiations fail, for any reason.

My understanding is that David Cameron promised Article 50 would be called : by March 2017 at the latest. May seems to have morphed that to : in March 2017 unless there are any obstacles.

My worry is she’s giving time for the remainers to gather their forces.

I don’t see how the EU violating its own treaty for its own convenience cannot be considered hostile towards certain member states.

The EU is already treating the referendum result as hostile besides (IOW assigning blame), shutting the UK out of EU activities even before any action on Article 50, even more so with Barnier’s actions here—so they reveal their true views on the withdrawal of any member state.

So rebus sic stantibus is the only logical move here, to stymie further aggression on the EU’s part (especially the ability thereof for same) and to knock the legs out from under the “Remain” camp.

PS. Barnier doing this is yet another violation of the treaty on behalf of the EU. That makes the case for rebus sic stantibus even stronger since the EU is committing more hostile actions and is, besides, violating pacta sunt servanda for its own goals.