Elgg 1.8 ?

I'm looking for some opinions and perhaps testing experiences on Elgg v1.8 ? We're considering going live with Elgg.1.8 for some of our elgg-sites.. The tests I've done myself (on XAMPP) seems to show v1.8 as being rather cool stuff. I will be loading some of out newer live elgg-sites with v1.8 sometime soon. I wonder if the Elgg Team have some soon in the future date to certify v1.8 for open release ??