>but the really clever part IMO is keeping people's interest this long with horribly missed target dates and amateurish marketing.
>
>I agree it wasn't great to make a splash and then progressively disappear. Nor is it good to have (informal) deadlines that go whooshing past without explanation. in that respect, this is more like an open source effort rather than a funded corporate effort like a MS OS release for which missed deadlines never could occur. ;-) Also you must admit that it always was made clear that the project is in early beta with experimental versions only available to paying customers, iow not an open beta. I'd also observe that some people were unimpressed/disillusioned from the start and simply have changed the explanation for their position. ;-)

I agree. It is sad that so much is expected of beta releases and that includes marketing an unfinished and unproven product. However, it should be pointed out that there were payments made for some releases and more should be expected for those (unless the purchaser clearly intended the payment for support for continuing development on the beta product and not a fully functional release of the product).