Alright, its sort of a lot of things, but it can basically be boiled down to one request.
Please, CA. Please. Don't rush this game.
I know, its sort of the opposite of what people usually say, but hear me out here.

Rushing ruins games. It does. It really, really, does. I can't count how many games with potential to be the best game on the planet were shipped as buggy, semi-finished POS's. Look at those HoI-style strategy games (Superpower?) by Dreamcatcher. So much potential. A Hearts of Iron set in the modern world? Massive nuclear wars?
Unfortunatly the most fun to be had in that game was watching the little white lines shoot across the planet to unleash the nuclear firestorm. I did have fun launching the entire Russian nuclear arsenal at the town I live in, though.
Fortunatly Dreamcatcher seems to have learned their lesson.
EA though...we just won't mention them. Aside from a passing refrence to Spore, which seems to be less a case of 'rushing' and more a case of marketing. I'm sure CA won't even consider dumbing their game down to get more market appeal, but if they do...just consider what was promised with Spore, and what we got. For me, it was like being promised a flying supercar that could shoot lasers form its headlights and cure cancer, only to be presented with an alright car, which maybe got decent gas mileage and had one of those in-car navi systems, but was otherwise basically just an ordinary car.
Oh, and I could only drive it three times.[/obligatory dig at the 'DRM']

So please, CA, learn a lesson from history. A rushed game is a poor game.
I, while I'm sure I don't speak for everybody, would LOVE to hear that you're delaying the release of ETW by a month to work out the final bugs. That would be a happy day. The 'ship it now and patch it later (over a year or so)' policy of certain companies has led to massive frustration among the PC gaming community. I, myself, have several times met with the frustration of purchasing a game, only to be left unable to get it to work because my particular system doesn't agree with the game. Mass Effect being a prime example. Installed it fine, got it to run...crash five seconds into the first level. Every time.
So far, all support requests related to the constant CTD's (I'm not alone, apparently) have been ignored. They aren't even mentioned in the patch.

Fortunatly, CA's very good about that sort of thing, and have managed to produce some of the more stable PC games on the market today. I appreciate that sort of thing. Not being constantly worried that my game is going to crash and burn, quicksaving before every 'end turn' (or every minute, like in Oblivion). The only trouble I've had with a TW game is with Rome, and that's because there was an unfortunate accident with one of the CD's which apparently surgically destroyed all data relating to the 'faction destroyed' and wonder in game movies. And that's not CA's fault :P

So keep up the good work, guys. Stay at it and Empire will be great. We'll all love you and throw flowers and cheer in the streets. Or at least think about it.