Toady is developing relatively quickly already.
Even if he wasn't don't hurry the man. As much as you'd like it to happen, he's already devoted every single one of his waking hours to this, and hurrying would mean releasing something sub-par. This isn't even as bad as it gets in terms of waits. There was a year-long one after 40d, so this one isn't that big in comparison.
So calm down. It's come out when it's done.
I know about the gap. I was there. I just though the arc was going to be released sooner with less. Doing it all in one big go seems to be a recipe for crazy bugs.
The game is in open beta. We're beta-testing so we can find the bugs. If Toady was worried about releasing a buggy version, he'd not release anything for the next ten years.
I Know that we're beta testing. I am aware of these things. My worry is that, personally, I'd rather have
City Update (sans catacombs)
City Bug fixing (say... Worldgen creates cities made entirely of of soap, populated only by elven children who lay iron chairs)
Catacomb and Entity relations Update
C&E bugfixing (City citizen bury all bodies in one coffin, citizens bury iron chairs)
Necromancer update
Necromancer bugfixes (necromancer in legends is murdered by zombie *iron chair*)
And so on. With the big update, I fear that it'll be like when .31 first came out, and it took about ten updates for enough bugs to be resolved for it to be playable [for me, anyways. Just my opinion on that release].