I don't know details of the Bankruptcy Code, by my impression of how things will work from here is as follows.
1) Disclosure Statement must be approved FIRST before any consideration of the Plan can proceed.
2) Disclosure Statement will probably NOT be approved until all objections to it have been resolved.
3) IF and when the Disclosure statement is approved, the next step would be for a Confirmation Hearing to be held on the Plan. However, prior to the Confirmation Hearing, a vote on the Plan will be solicited for all those eligible to vote. The Classes eligible to vote on the Plan is clearly laid out in the Disclosure Statement. Common shareholders will NOT be allowed to vote on the plan.
4) At the Confirmation Hearing I assume that all objections to the Plan will be presented.
At this point, I'm not sure what it would take to confirm the Plan if there are objections.
It seems obvious to me that the longer the approval of the Disclosure Statement takes, and the longer the Confirmation of the Plan takes, the more likely it is that the Judge will have to declare the Debtors to be "administratively insolvent". At that point, I don't know exactly how things will proceed, but I assume that by some mechanism this case will become a Chap 7 Liquidation. There are even sections in the current DS that discuss such a scenario. Then the question for SHLDQ shareholders will be, "Does the trustee cancel SHLDQ shares immediately, or does he wait until all claims against the Estate are settled?" I don't know.
