I'm going to take a moment to review what Toady has remaining on the list at this moment.
As of right now he's finished the new creatures, and underground populations and civilizations.
And starting likely today (which he'll update tomorrow) he should be working on the underground map features and recourses. Which will including more farmable regions and likely differnet kinds of layouts for the underground. This could take several days to a week.
Following this is rope ladders which judging by Toady's blog, he's going to do it. This means making ladders that can be raised and lowered at will, making them climbable, and maybe other effect too (flamability, can you cut them, can it be hoisted with people on them ect.) That along sounds like it could be a week's worth of work maybe more.
Finally, even after he get through that. There's still finalizing the game. This includes....
Compacting files, fixing hydras, fixing the cat bug, fixing a various number of bugs based on players' request, merging the 40d## material, and finally perform a long series of test to make sure that the games doesn't die, crash or become unplayable(this one alone will probably take several weeks if some serious problems come up).
So even if you wanted rope ladder out, it would still be a good while before the game is released. Unless you wanted to play a DF game that crashes or kills your computer....
And of course no one would want that... now would they?
So in other words let's just keep waiting....the time is getting closer, but it could be another month, maybe two before it happens.