Yes, Cocoon 2.1.8 is finally out!
There are a number of new features of this long-awaited release, including Ajax support for snappy form handling.
However, I share Ugo's feelings: Cocoon needs more changes to bring excitement back. We need to have all the nice features of Cocoon 2.2 out quickly. And probably some more radical changes to match the needs of the new application development models brought by Ajax.