ETags have been assigned to a map/reduce group (the collection of views in a single design document). Any change to any of the indexes for those views would generate a new ETag for all view URL's in a single design doc, even if that specific view's results had not changed.

In CouchDB 1.1 each _view URL has it's own ETag which only gets updated when changes are made to the database that effect that index. If the index for that specific view does not change, that view keeps the original ETag head (therefore sending back 304 Not Modified more often).