I'm interested to see how the following items below can be done directly with Sencha Architect:
1. Localization
2. Config externalization, i.e. json store url parameter (perhaps a way to access the value from a global JSON object).
Both of these are features we're slating to solve in 2.2
I'm not saying it can't be done now but just that it's pretty gnarly. Search the forums for examples of localization. Some have even gone as far as having special identifiers like $productStoreUrl and then running grep scripts or using phantomJS to read in and replace these config values w/ those from a config file.
I don't know the release date as it's feature based and not time bound. I can tell you that we will be making releases between now and then. Both of these features seem likely to be part of the final 2.2 release.
We plan to have 4 minor releases a year which as you saw w/ 2.1 are pretty major! ;p
Maintenance and small features will be released between those.
Examples how to use, externally developped objects, like a dynamic (ajax, json) colum grid.
How to add custom external components, and integrate it to architect project.
How to add external js files, with defined user alias and put it inside architect panel.