I was really impressed with the update, even in its current beta state. I loved the big battle, the new characters. I also enjoyed playing from the beginning for the first time in years, re-experiencing a lot of the game that has been updated since.
Are there some coding and grammar issues? Absolutely! That's the purpose of a beta...put out a playable version of the content, see what needs fine-tuning or fixing. Were any of the issues I encountered game-breaking? Nope. I changed one variable related to Ain to enable her night visits. I ran into a missing variable or two which didn't break anything and I was able to skip through.
I'm looking forward to the update in its completed form...and yes I will start again because I chose different routes/options than I normally do just for the beta to see different content (Queen's guard dilemma, The Hive, etc.).
Simple solution to so many people expressing concerns in the many posts above: Wait for the full release. Don't play a beta release if you don't want to deal with possible bugs or missing content. This update is really good. You will enjoy it...just wait for the polished release. Zetan has been consistently awesome about getting content out in a timely manner, in this same cadence of beta (17b) and then polished (17c) release.