In practice the team haven't had anything since Beta 13 - until tonight.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. We'll see how things work out this time. I've just been hoping that as the necessity for SonicBlue to officially be involved in the empeg car product diminishes, we'd start seeing more frequent and less "officially blessed" and rigorously-tested releases. It's not that I don't want quality code, it's more that I think that some of the best innovations on the player were things that were kinda thrown in and initially had bugs in them (the seek tool comes to mind.)

I just hope we don't have to wait another six months between releases, and I thought a change in philosophy and focus might be appropriate now that the product doesn't need to officially be supported as much anymore.