I've been at Gaia working on Battle for about 6 months now. Battle has come a long way, and it still has a long way to go. That much awesomeness takes time to pack into a single game. Recent highlights:
Went to JavaOne a couple weeks ago to improve my Java-Fu and learn about new tools to make Battle better, safer, and less buggy. Finished the event-based system to track instances. Got a cold this week. Mostly better now. I hate colds. Going to Fanime tomorrow.
There's a lot more I could talk about, but we're under instruction not to talk about Battle right now. And I certainly can't talk about when it'll come out. It'll come out when it does. We all just have to be patient for it. It'll be worth the wait.