I just had a thought about Batman taking a break while Bruce comes out into the limelight a bit more. The Dark Knight set up the fact that all of the petty criminals would be locked up for at least 18 months. When you couple that with two supervillians dead (Ra's and Harvey), two supervillians caught (Joker and Scarecrow), one mob boss driven insane (Falcone), at least two mob bosses dead (Maroni and the black guy from TDK), AND the cops chasing him for Harvey's death...I can see why Batman would be cool with taking a break. There probably isn't very much crime...
I think that the first half of the film will focus almost solely on Bruce starting to live up to his family name while putting Batman on hiatus for a while, the rise of crime in Gotham represented by Bane, and the origins of Catwoman. The second half will be about Batman returning while also establishing the traditional Gotham city that you see in comics (rogue gallery running amuck, Gordon turning on batsignal if the city needs help, Batman being seen as a hero, etc).
What do you think?