Kops generally stays one release behind. 1.9 is being end to end tested in the last week. I wouldn't use that as an example of not keeping up, it's the established cycle for the project.
User feedback has been that that we want to keep that, but that we should also offer an alpha/beta of 1.10 much sooner, so that users that want to try out 1.10 today can do so (and so we get feedback earlier). So watch for kops 1.10 alpha very soon, and 1.11 alpha much earlier in the 1.11 cycle.