The brass at EA must have them working too hard on BF3. No idea still except for R11 is indeed being worked on.
I think DICE has borrowed clocks from Valve.
Nope, DICE just has the worst QA process in the world. Remember when they removed tracers from bullets by accident (which took several weeks to fix)? Honestly, how is that even possible? What does their QA process entail that they can't even realize that the tracers are missing? If they bothered to play the game for 5 minutes they would realize that. They expect us to believe that they need to test these patches for months and then they miss something that can be noticed in minutes? Hmmm... yeah, I don't think so.
Also, not patching the game to fix issues because you're afraid of other issues cropping up isn't a good excuse. If I try that on my boss, he would fire me on the spot. Write good code, and test it thoroughly. Apparently, this is too much to ask from DICE.