I am a happy KDE user, but I also have Ubuntu as a secondary system on one of my laptops. For that reason, the fact that last April's version remained in GNOME 3.38 did not taste too bad to me, for that reason and because it did not seem a bad idea to wait for everything to be more consistent. More disappointing may be the desktop that will arrive alongside Ubuntu 21.10 Impish Indri, as it could be six months late.
GNOME 40 It is now available on Ubuntu 21.10 Daily Live, and that could be the desktop on which the stable version will be released. This is what Sebastien Bacher has made known, answering in the forum from Ubuntu to a user who asked if they would stick to v40 or make the jump to v41. Sebastien replied that they have already reached the role freeze, so it is likely that they will stay in which threw last march.
Ubuntu 21.10 will arrive on October 14… with GNOME 40?
Ideally, we would have updated to 41 but the feature freeze is today and we did not have the resources available for the update. If you want to update some components, please do so, otherwise we may request exceptions for the selected updates.
It seems like, GNOME 41 is not developing with the speed that would allow it to get there to Ubuntu 21.10. As a personal opinion, and without working in any Canonical position, I would say that all is not lost, that there is still the possibility, no matter how remote, that Impish Indri will arrive with the next version of the GNOME desktop, but it is better to remain skeptical and not create false hopes.
Ubuntu 21.10 Impish Indri is coming next October 14, and Sebastien does comment that some GNOME 41 packages will be usable. As in the current Hirsute Hippo, the applications are expected to be the new ones. If we take that into account and that the jump to GNOME 41 seems like it won't be big, do we take this point for granted?