Even in Gold, the ministers are quite stupid. The most important thing pre-Gold is missing is all the bug fixes in Gold.
If you decide to wait for SEV, it'll almost certainly take at least 5 or 6 months, possibly more before it's released. If you want to play online in the mean time, Gold is almost a necessity because almost everyone playing on
PBW already has it, may not even have pre-Gold at all anymore, and probably wouldn't want to go back to it anyway. You may find some opponents for a 1.49 match if you look hard enough, but it's much easier to get a Gold 1.91 game going. Unfortunately, SEIV Gold is currently in limbo between the end of Shrapnel's sales and the beginning of the rerelease by Strategy First as SEIV Deluxe. Your best bet for finding a copy quickly is online auction sites like ebay.