On a side note, anyone wanna bet that there are 16 shards?
I would bet against there being 16 shards. Sazed said 16 was the number that Preservation used to let people know he was doing something. There is no indication that the number 16 went above and beyond that. Plus if there were 16, Sazed now brought the number down to 15 by absorbing two of them.
Au contraire. Sazed said there was something very deep and fundamental about the number sixteen, something that related to the way the universe itself worked. He said that Preservation used 16 because it was
so fundamental to the way the world worked, Ruin couldn't counter it. He said, in fact, that he didn't fully understand all the implications of 16, even with his expanded intellect. Thus I feel that my statement is a solid speculation firmly based on canon. If you wish a citation for this reference, I will have to get it later. It was one of the bumps after the Allomancy/Mist connection had been found.
As for Sazed absorbing two of them: That doesn't change the number of powers, just the number of personalities controlling the powers. I still suspect that there are sixteen powers, or shards. If they are being recombined, then good for them. They were, after all, apparently one once.