I've very confident that DOA could appear at a major tournament before it releases. The problem is that the release date was pushed up a bit, so there really aren't many events between now and the release of the game.
You've got Evo and maybe IPL5 in the US. Everything else would probably come too early in the development cycle of the game.
However, you've got E3 coming up. A current build of DOA5 should be playable there, and Manny, Vanessa and sWooZie were at E3 last year (as was I). I'm sure they'll probably be back this year, along with myself. Plus, you have the feedback form on the site and thousands of people playing the demo. You can just take the demo to the next major and direct everyone to the feedback form.