Redirecting stdout and stderr is a very hacky method.
Not really. It's a standard approach for intercepting messages written to the console in GUI applications. If you disagree with Chromium's use of console messages for debugging purposes then you're welcome to bring up the issue with the Chromium developers on the chromium-dev mailing list.
Also how long is CEF2 going to take to come out?
The initial version of CEF2 is under active development. As with most volunteer projects, it will be available when it is ready.
Is it worth submitting patches for things like cookies and useragent?
I don't know what issues specifically you're referring to, but good patches that improve CEF are and will continue to be welcome. I plan to continue development of CEF for as long as reasonably possible because CEF2 will not be an appropriate replacement for CEF in all use cases.