Blizzard has stated on the WOW General Board that the game will be gold when Blizzard says it is gold and to ignore any other posts no matter who they come from. There is clearly a power struggle going on here. I guess it comes down the the artist vs the publisher again.
Back in the day it used to be the artist who dictated when a game was done, now the environment has shifted power to the publisher. Lets all hope that Valve's Steam will shift power back into the hands of the artist.