It would be great if they concentrate more on fixing old issues than rubber-stamping new versions with "good ol' bugs".
It seems that MS slightly refuse their "Upgrade'o'Die" politics at least for some products. But so fast new beta? Most likely it will be some kind of transient version like VFP7.
IMHO there are nothing revolutionary in those features described in Mr Levy's letters. This could be good as service pack not as new version.
/A new technology turns into completely outdated stuff before you have a time to read "Getting Started..." section.
/If there are some "system programmers" then others are unsystematic.