I think it would be cool if Aikar could just pick a date. If he thinks 2 weeks, then maybe choose a date a month in the future to be safe. I'm sure that many people will want to be online when it switches and many things will break. For example: - Shops need to stock new items. - Many items will change value resulting in issues for shops not updated. - I assume wasteland will be resetting at the same time. People may need to get their stuff. - Minecart systems will likely break and have to be redone. So for these and more reasons, it would be useful to the community to have a bit more notice of this change and when it's occurring. We've been on 1.7 for months so waiting an extra couple weeks to have a solid date is not going to hurt anyone.
The increased speed and momentum feature to Minecarts in 1.8 was removed in the official release (In one of the snapshots to be more precise)
I don't think my minimap will work after the update will have to find another. I don't know how you people live without a minimap. As dreacon78 once said, "That's why they get lost and die so much." XD
There are certain features to some maps that make them "against the rules" let me find the post really quick... ah, not hard to find at all: http://empireminecraft.com/wiki/approved-mods/ For instance, journey map is not allowed but the fairplay version is as the fairplay version does not offer features that would give you an "unfair advantage" lol yeah right all mods do that XD