I am using suse 10.3 and presently thinking about using another linux op system. I would be using it to install on a hardware system that has some problems which I am trying to track down.

I heard that 11.1 is still a bit unstable. Is this true?

I've been using it on my private Laptop and, beside Mandriva, on my private desktop for a few months now and there never occured problems. Yes, I guess it's quite stable.

Why not download the live Cd of opensuse 11.1 and try it you're self
I do not have any problems with opensuse 11.1 for my it works better than opensuse 10.3 but that is personal.
It might depends on you're hardware

Not to my knowledge, although I have seen some comments to that effect. It does, however, come with KDE4 and you can't expect that to meet the highest levels of stability. Or come particularly close. But you can use another GUI, and you probably should if you don't like being so close to the bleeding edge that you get your toes bloody.

It is also one of the distros that uses network manager and that seems to have occasional outbreaks of misbehaviour. I've seen wicd recommended
but how much difference that makes and how hard the change is to make, I don't know.