I did see some parts getting machine translation prior to this and I tried to fix as much as I could - trust me, it isn't fun. The workload on the reviewers as they have to fix everything in the end is still there and we don't have that many translators to begin with, which is why the project was made open (and tbh if machine translation is okay for the sake of a quick release, the group might as well go with it in the first place and recruit translators later). Beta releases are cool if you want a glimpse at the game and help with reporting whatever bugs there may be to perfect the patch, but there may be people interested in the story and the characters waiting for something coherent. Like you said, reviewing would take ages so I guess they can wait as long.
But well, we got to 99%. It's up to the team if they want to go with beta releases right now.