Fairrosamund, publishing a route earlier than release allows the creator to effectively release their route as an open beta to the community- this allows the creator to gain feedback on the route while they are working on it, so if the community find any bugs with the route that the creator may not have spotted, the creator will be able to look at the comments for feedback and then fix the bugs, making the final release work better.

Can't see the point of publishing an incomplete route.Why not wait until it is completed,the publish it ?????