Why does SL seem to still be so far behind?

Ok, first off this is not a flame of any kind, just mearly observations and suggestions (Some suggestions may have already been made, so don't reply with "Read this, its already been mentioned".

I have played several MMORPGs in my life, Ranging from EQ to DAoC and yet more. What I've come to see with second life is a really innovative design, huge avenues of creativity and a player control that is unpresidented in any other MMORPG (Yes, this is still an MMORPG, no matter how you look at it...its massive, its multiplayer and its a Role Playing game). However the one thing I note that is very different from any other one...is...testing.

Hours on top of hours of downtime, an update comes out...it goes live...you play for a little bit to later get messages saying "The grid will be coming down, please return anything you put out" and other such things. Its great that updates are being released, however, back to back; as it was with 1.10 to 1.11, without obviously proper testing is a bit annoying, to say the least. A test server, like with EQ2 would be wonderful...even if you have to wait a month to unleash a new update, no one will mind...because the update will come out with very little problems and less of a chance to crash a sim.

Why not do minor bug fixes in small updates....Not an entire new client download. I've never seen another system force you to download an entire new client, just to patch it. Known bugs are floating around...old an numerous, why haven't those been fixed in routine patches? Small bugs shouldn't remian for any length of time. I know, some will say "Well SL has more people then EQ or EQ2 or any of those, so its harder to get everythign working right" This is true, however SOE has several MMORPGs that it maintains with little to no problems.

Don't get me wrong, I appriciate everything that is being done at Linden Labs, I adore SL despite the downtimes with updates and what not. My suggestion is...test everything fully, create another smaller grid for testing, so you don't have to bring down the whole thing just so employees can test a new patch. Wait a month or two before bring out the patch, no one will mind...but everyone will be joyed to see problems getting fixed, but those fixes not causing more problems. Yet still, people will be over joyed to see the patches that used to take several hours, get done in only 30 minutes to an hour.

My suggestion is for just a better testing method and a longer testing method.

No flame, I love SL and I love everyone at Linden Labs for bringing this wonderful game to us.

There actually was a test server up to bug-test most of 1.11 for a few weeks. I believe on that part they were pretty sure that they could release this update without the issues having occured right now.

Something that I find perculiar though - Every time I get on the test server, I need to be lucky to actually bump into someone at all. Usually I'm happy seeing another green dot on the map.
Are the test servers really tested? Are there test teams? And if the test servers are quite deserted, why?

There is one problem that you are listing here: 'The small bugs'.
I don't get this either, but I have seen this with many companies - Small bugs get forgotten up to a point where people don't even care complaining about them anymore since they have been there so long already.
I also report bugs every now and then and only sometimes get a reply that the bug has been confirmed and worked on. What about those bug reports I have send and never had any reply on?.. Are these ignored, forgotten, or seen as not important enough? I find that really irritating and it often makes me wonder why to bother reporting anyway.

It can be very difficult to fully bug-test a large system like SL. It's much easier to (1) check that the new version seems stable, (2) release it, and (3) act on new bug reports.

Unfortunately, of course, the process of fixing a bug and deploying it to the grid takes longer than we'd like. But I wouldn't necessarily say that LL's approach is wrong. If I were in charge, I'd just tweak the priorities a bit.