Ive worked in the area between programmers and CEO's. An ETA on patches is like asking for an ETA on an earthquake. Really. Unless someone like a CEO tried to force an arbitray ETA then there never was one. Even when that was tried it rarely hit the mark.
In my experience at least, programmers tend to have a continual list of little things they can tweak into it. So they didnt tend to see an end to what they were doing until it was there. Suddenly "this is a good place to cut this one off and package it". At that point estimates could be made but it would be... what? A day or two to get the various Versions done and available on the download site?
Heard of "fog of war"? This is "fog of programming". The customer support people for that company I was in learned that they would get bit if they tried to ask the programmers or system techs for dates. They used to make up dates down the road and then mention snags when it didnt happen by then.
Im impatient also. I will say though that as programmers go, Johan K is doing better than most at releasing regularly which makes it alittle easier for me.