The announcement of ksqlDB 0.7.0 highlights significant improvements, including highly available state, security enhancements, and support for a broader range of data types and expressions. A key feature is the ability for queries to be rerouted to standby servers during a cluster rebalance, mitigating unavailability issues, although users must manage potential staleness in results. New functions like count_distinct and cube have been introduced to enhance data analysis capabilities, while the system now supports a wider variety of key data types beyond strings. Additionally, working with compound data has been simplified with first-class constructors for arrays, maps, and structs, allowing for more intuitive data manipulation. The update also hints at future enhancements in app development ergonomics and query layer performance for the upcoming 0.8.0 release.