Here's a question for you guys, how would you handle this situation if you were at MS?
Scenario: You are Phil Spencer. The Xbox One development is going well, but there are small issues regarding online (like the party chat issues mentioned in the OP) that you hope will be ironed out by launch.
Things are going well and you are hopeful that by working overtime, you will be able to fix these by launch. If not, it will take a week or two at worst to fix them. Things could be better, but they are still not that bad.
Suddenly, word gets out and Mort posts this info on his blog. Now you have hundreds of angry fanboys asking you stuff like 'Is the online borked?' on your twitter. How do you answer?
Do you:
A) Say 'There are no issues', and hope whatever issues there are get fixed by launch, and no one remembers this. However, by saying this, you are playing with fire. If you don't fix the issues, they will call you an outright liar and this will be a PR nightmare.
B) Admit to the issues but ensure they will get fixed by launch. While this is an honest reply, its marketing suicide. Gamers might cancel pre-orders based on knee-jerk impulses, and if you end up fixing all the issues by launch, you would regret ever admitting you had any.
C) Give a non-answer.
Its a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, and I don't blame guys like Spencer or Penello for giving non-answers. Its not because they are being dishonest, its just that its a shitty situation they are placed in and too early to start answering this as the console's still a month out.
They should wait until they know for sure whether they can deliver a fix or not, but still early enough so that people can cancel pre-orders if they so choose. A week before the console ships would be a good timeframe.
P.S. I'm talking out of my ass in a fantasy scenario and I don't really know how the business works.