I agree. Games tend to be much less malleable than web applications. For one, web apps are much easier to change after release than other products because there is no distribution problem - just push the code and you're done. And in general, users have a more well-defined set of expectations from a game than from a web app - if you miss those expectations, you can be toast.

I guess one way to push the release date up would be to cut some of the content and pack it in an expansion pack or later update. But the 1.0 version has to be solid, otherwise no one will stick around long enough for the expansion.