You guys, except Flying Dice, are totally missing the point on the popcap. Rather than impose a godlike will on the number of citizens emigrating from the mountain homes - which is incredibly gamey - he's decided to let that hard number be interpreted in-game in a natural way. Also, if you think about it for a minute, you have to consider future features - when armies and bandits are moving around the map, who's to say that emigrants won't get waylaid on the roads and have their numbers reduced? What about refugees? What about hill dwarves?!
It still functions as a soft-cap, and preserves the mechanics of the simulation, it seems to me that if a hard-cap were to be imposed it would, if not now then definitely later, have to fudge the mechanics of global populations and pop. movements, which is a coding nightmare waiting to happen. If you don't like it, why don't you make a better suggestion in the suggestions forum?
While I'm at it...
#5312, #33, #2327 not bugs - wait for pulping
#5611, #5263, #5598 not bugs - wait for NPC schedules, world caravans and emergent trading
the issues with adventure mode, the caravans begin to roll. The peasants are free from their hovels, tilling the fields and tending to their pigs and chickens. Great walled towns import food and goods from all over the world. You will be able to run one of these caravans, buying and selling across land, guided by the law of supply and demand. Not only that, you can do it on a horse.
It's coming soon!
#4552, #3685, #3015 not bugs - wait for siege rewrite
I've already delayed formations. They aren't crucial for the release and I can just do them before I do improved sieges, since that's when I'll most start to want to have them around I expect.
This
is coming sometime!
#136 wait for LAA version
There are a couple of others on the list that are really balancing issues and not bugs per se.
I agree that mechanics are broken, but you've confused temporary-placeholder mechanics with "bugs". As Toady showed with the recent clothing and taming revamps, and as is logical because there are so many mechanics interlinked, these problems with the game are not going to be fixed individually. So it seems pointless to list them as such. Also, though Toady pays good attention to fan requests, he has his own schedule and in most of the above cases he is obviously aware of them and it really is just a matter of time before they get fixed.
If we just relax, change our ESV votes now hauling is going to be tackled, and let the mantis tracker trundle along, all of this will go away in time.