Most likely there are one or two deal-breaker bugs that have been introduced from their last round of fixes (happens all the time). There is a poor developer somewhere wrestling with said bug, as the rest of the office tries very hard not to distract him/check up on him.
I'd really like to read a post mortem write up on what's causing the delay on this patch. For reference, it's been pushed 3 times, last patch was almost 5 weeks ago and in about 2 weeks, EC loses the 'Early Access' moniker. And since we're talking about the regularity of things: I take offense to the 'very regular updates' part. I don't have Founders' access, so I only get a max of 2 patches per month. I wouldn't call that regular.
And still no in game guild/chapter creations, and the game is suppose to go live soon. When do we get to choose and test this part of the game?