Even though it's been so long since D2, I hope it's in 2010 or 2011.
Remember, once it's out, it's out forever carved in history. Patches can only do so much good if the mechanics of the game are rushed and boring or messed up.
I'd much rather wait an extra year or two and get a perfect sequel to such an awesome game, than get it tomorrow and have it really generific, bland, boring and full of bugs. Because if it's a half-baked production, it's not Diablo, it's just another hack-n-slash slapped with the Diablo brand name.
It's like stuffing a sandwich with baloney and selling it as a hamburger. Buying $0.20 bags of outdated popcorn and selling it as $4.50 'glamour hollywood spiced american popcorn' in a movie theatre. You can call it whatever you want but the content is still shit if it doesn't live up to the expectation.