It sounds to me like an answer from a man that has to respect the policies of his employer, don't confuse the two. VFP 8 speaks for itself, as do the efforts of the people involved in the VFP team. Why put so much effort into something thats going to shortly become obsolete?

BTW I agree that an evalutation version is a great way of exposing others to the product. However, we should be aware that there is effort required in getting this which would ultimately detract attention/resource away from VFP 9 development as Craig and others have highlighted.