Still present in 1.5.1 and 13w16a.
Updated, the issue is still present in 1.5.
This is not a feature suggestion. The view distance is not properly changing the chunk loading distance, as it did before, and as a result of SP games working as listen servers.
This is still an issue in 13w38c, even with the new "render distance" slider. Any option beyond 10 chunks remains at 10.