While 1.7.2 seems to have improved the situation a bit, at least in terms of frequency, I'm still seeing voids in the world until I'm practically on top of them, or if I stand about for 15-30 seconds and it finally loads on its own.

I've noticed this problem ever since it first appeared many many many patches ago. And although one patch released soon after the original development of this issue has fixed the problem for many users, it had no effect for me. I'm playing on the same hardware I had at that time with the exception of having added the 580GTX.