I'll add my impressions after 3 complete games instead of starting a new thread:
First off, this is a huge improvement over release. The game is a lot better now, and I'm starting to actually have some fun playing it. Keep up the good work.
One of the things I like is how my sovereign and adventures feel a lot more formidable in combat. Unfortunately, and I think this is more to do with the AI than mechanics, they feel a bit too powerful. They're all one-man armies, and I can win on the highest level by just sending my sovereign (and his retinue of adventurers once I can recruit them) around conquering everything. For some reason the spouses of enemy sovereigns can be a bit tough, but the enemy sovereigns themselves are push-overs, and they never really muster much resistance from normal troops. I'm also seeing a lot less groups now - in the three games I've played, only one enemy empire has managed to create any, and I've never gotten around to it.
I like the new magic system, and can't say I have any significant complaints here, although the AI should probably use it better.
The new economy is a better idea, I think, but it doesn't scale well. After the early mid-game, gold ceases to be a concern, as I get way too much of it. It was also unexpected that all the +gold improvements and bonuses don't affect tax income. I'd like to see base tax income reduced, and the bonuses work on taxes. Balancing this all out could be a bit tricky, but ideally the early game would stay about where it is while the mid and late game will see substantial decreases in gold supply.
From all the games I've played, pre-1.1 and post, I was starting to think that horses & warg resources weren't in the game at all (making it impossible to build mounted troops), but I did finally find 1 horse resource in one of my games. Still haven't seen a warg resource. These really should be more common - it shouldn't be possible to play an entire game without finding either.
For the city bonuses on level ups, I'd really like to be able to take a closer look at the city before making a choice. It's kinda a pain that I have to remember most of the things about the city before that pop-up appears.
The techs, especially in the adventuring tree, should be a lot more explicit in what they do. I still find that I don't know what causes my quest or treasure hunting level to go up, and I have to guess at what's going to happen when I get a new tech from the adventuring tree. There's probably some rearranging that needs to be done too; in my game as the empire, I had a bunch of magical equipment techs, but never could find the tech that would allow me to start harvesting crystals so I could actually build troops with that equipment.
Overall: big improvement, but not quite good enough for me to start recommending it to friends yet. I can easily see it getting to that point soon though.