Seemingly major architectural changes are coming with the newly released GnuPG 2.1 - https://gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html Reproducible: Didn't try No packages are available yet to test KGPG against GnuPG 2.1
Linking to tracking issue in GnuPG BTS: https://bugs.g10code.com/gnupg/issue1750
Please open bugsreports only for specific problems / feature requests. I'm using Kleopatra with gpg2.1 and an ECC and I don't see any issues., To test it you don't need packages or a different build as everything is done over gpgme you can just swap the gnupg version. If there's a 2.1 gpg-agent set you can use gnupg 2.1 with kleopatra / kmail. There is no GUI for some of the new Features of gpg2.1 (e.g. ECC key creation.) But as those are still hidden on the command line until you use --expert I think it is perfectly fine not to include them in Kleopatra for now. If you find something missing that should be in the GUI please open Bug reports directly for a specific issue.