I continue to be mystified by the individuals who pay to play a game that works poorly and then cheer when the working verison comes out much later.
Fascinating human behaviour, illogical, but fascinating.
I'd like to try and speculate a few possible reasons why you see that:
1) People who are familiar with the past of Paradox, which seems to be release, patch, receive more feedback, new patch, etc., and they are excited that 1.3 appears to be a major step forward in the evolution of the game.
2) People who are brand new to Paradox (like myself), who already enjoy the game to some degree but are anxiously awaiting the next step forward.
3) Those who are upset because they don't feel they've gotten what they've paid for, and now have hope that this patch could cross that threshold.
4) Those who have experienced other software developers and have seen the result of games that receive little to no post-release support. Then they see that these HOI patches fix significant issues, improve other significant issues, and are happy that the developer doesn't just give up on the project and move onto the next project, grabbing what money they can.
Naturally, there are also those who are, and will remain, upset that the 1.3 or future patch version wasn't the one that was released initially, but that's really a separate discussion that has been had on these forums repeatedly for long enough that I don't care to read, or participate, in it.
Oh, and by the way, and back on topic; thanks devs for keeping your noses to the grindstone and for continually working on game fixes and improvements.