If 1.1 has addressed so many issues then this seems like a rhetorical question to me. Pump out as many stability fixes as you can and call it a release imho.

An important point to add to the brads topic above.

Releasing 1.1 in December could also be the wrong choice and could also end Elemental since 1.09 is a bit more polished than 1.1 even though it has less features. This may sound harsh but you guys had your chance to make an impression on customers and that was on August 24th 2010. If you start worrying about holiday release dates and Christmas impressions instead of actually releasing quality patches then there's nothing stopping you from making the same mistakes you did on release. Take the time and comb through the support forum for bugs.

If you're having stability issues with the betas, please post about them.  One thing we don't want is to release v1.1 and have people come out and say "I can't believe they released this! It's buggy!" when the forum has gotten pretty quiet.  

The current build 1.09t is still not stable enough for release, but it's getting pretty close.

Then post debugs and saves because your apparently one of the few people having these crashes. My game and the games of many other people on this forum work fine. If you don't post your crashes then no one else will, and they will be ignored and never fixed.  

Here is list of some things that should be cleaned up before you release the 1.1 patch.

Visit Store

1. (bug?) Padded Armlets has the same texture as Leather Armlets, in 1.09p they had the same texture as Padded Greaves.

2. I've post numerous times on why some items that champions can't be sold or why some items have no value?

Clothes

3. What's the point of clothes, when they become unusable when wearing armor?

Research

4. You can't build anything because, you don't have enough housing or food, there is no easy way to look this up, to find out what you need to research to get you more.  Catch 22, you can't build a farming guild to get more food because you don't have enough population and you can get more population because you can't build more Huts because you don't have enough food!

5. The game needs a tech tree, so you can see what to research to get what you want/need!

City Detail Screen

6. You still can't find out about housing vs. population capacity, without counting huts then multiple by 25.

7. You can't even see the number of buildings you have, number of Workshops, Huts, etc. without counting.

8. You can't even get a list of what buildings are making money vs. which are costing you money without looking at each and every building type!

Documentation

9. Updated Manual or create a player guide on the changes in gameplay.

@pad: While all the things you mention are things that I think should be addressed in a future update, none of them are things we would hold back v1.1 for. Heck, my GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor pet peeve list has things on it like that.

None of those things you listed are bugs or stability issues. They're change requests -- ones I happen to agree with but change requests nevertheless.

Ya since were nearing the end of this beta cycle i'm finally downloading a beta patch to look for stability issues myself.

This being said.. I can see why it may be a good idea to release 1.1.. I do suggest that if done it is made abundantly clear to those who install (most importantly new users) that you recognize that there are facets of game mechanic and polish that are being reworked and that 1.1 is the stability patch upon which all future changes need to be made.. from what I am reading here many of the issues being called bugs (and indeed some are) are not the crash issues that  most of what 1.1 was designed as fix for...

Under the above understanding I recommend release 1.1 so the next phase in Elemental's growth into what we all hope it can be, may begin..

Your right that they are not game killers and I'm happy they are going on some ones list  but, some may see it as a not paying attention to the details, a quality issue and some of them will just frustrate new players.

This is my feeling too. It's not the grand design problems bogging Elemental down anymore, it's all these...I hate to say it, thoughtless errors that really detract from the game experience. The broken and un-connected stuff that litters the game (which I will say you guys are cleaning up with every patch.)

If you guys can get THOSE things nailed down, and the majority of crashes and bugs killed by when you need to put up a release version....then I say, release it by Christmas and it will be the "better" game.

I can wait on the game to continue growing into its shoes, if those other issues haunting the game from release are cleaned up. (Mentions of essence. Out-dated/unconnected techs. Gratuitous use of the handful of quests that work as padding for adventuring content.)

If you DON'T think you can get all that stuff cleaned up, fixed, removed and/or connected by...what, Dec 19th? 20th? Then I'd recommend pushing back to January, because it will give the game yet another black eye when users hop on to play and stuff like their techs don't do what they say they do.

For me, the point at which I stop a game of Elemental is when I know that ALL the later game stuff I'm building towards has issues. Adventuring particularly, but late game AI, itemization, techs and dynasties, and their current states, all make me go "eh" when I realize I'm playing toward rocky and/or broken content. That is NOT the impression you want new players to end up with.

The beginning/mid game of Elemental is very fun, and very addicting. But you hit a wall there at some point, for all the above mentioned reasons.

(PS- Not saving the unit card info....would love to see that fixed asap.)

Since some people seem to keep repeating themselves in the vaguest terms, I will be very specific. These are the things that I think need to be fixed(not added) before the patch should be out of beta. Although you should probably just release the game in December anyway becasue 1.09e is horrible compared to the beta even with some annoying bugs.

1. The Monster bug needs fixed.

2. Children currently extremely bugged. They don't always start as channelers, and they have weird stats like 1 movement. See this thread for more information: 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/401929

3. The tech research descriptions should be updated because several are very outdated and would really confuse newcomers.

There are several other bugs mentioned in the support forum. I don't think any of these should push back release, you should be able to fix them quick.

From a cold, logical stand point, the sooner the update is released the better unless it introduces new crashes.

Holding the release until January accomplishes nothing. You're going to want to give every new player (and every returning player) the best possible experience as soon as you can, which means releasing 1.1 as soon as it is as stable as possible and starting on 1.2.

Holding the release until Jan is akin to a restaurant owner stock piling rat poison, so that he can kill all the rats in one large epic swoop. The restaurant owner would be wiser to use all the poison at hand immediately and prevent / satisfy health codes than to wait and possibly get closed or turn off customers from the food.