Mmmn.
In order, then.
1. I don't know why ED claimed 2006 - it turned out to be unrealistic. But after having revised that info, there's no promise for Black Shark to be released in 2007.
ED no longer give release dates, because if they slip there's an uproar. Now it seems that even if they don't give release dates . . . . there'll be an uproar.
2. You're quite right, this is nothing like the situation with the 1.02 patch.
It's infinitely more complicated ;)
Hopefully when Black Shark is released there will be a greater understanding about just why it took so long.
3. Beta Testers usually do have something good to say about ED or Black Shark. If we weren't enthusiastic about it, we wouldn't be on the Beta Team.
And yes, we do handle some questions on the forums on behalf of the devs, because we can. Would you rather we said nothing at all?
So we handle some PR tasks - but thanks to this little thing called an NDA, we can't tell you about the testing we do.
And it's by no means a picnic. The community complains if they get a CTD, or a bug, or AI doing something stupid, or missiles never hitting, or instruments failing to work, or graphics glitches . . . . well by the nature of beta testing we have to go out and look for things like that. And then try and deliberately reproduce them.
Trying to make a buggy program lock up your PC on purpose, and then find out exactly what caused it can sometimes lack a little fun.
So can having to go through and report whether each light in the cockpit lights up at just the right time.
So can having to watch AI battles over and over to see if they do it right.
Clearly, laying hands on a sim in development can be rewarding - otherwise we wouldn't do it - but playing a broken game isn't always fun.
Now then, the final point . . . do you think ED are just sitting on their hands with a complete product ready to go?
Black Shark Just Isn't Ready Yet. As soon as it is, it'll be released . . . . but until then, the Beta Team have to deal with all the infuriating bugs that would cause the community to go beserk if they made it into a product on sale.
Even "good business sense" can't cause programmers and testers to work twice as fast as normal.
To pre-empt the next question . . . . yes, we're still doing the community a favour. See snide comments in innumerable reviews about being a paying beta tester for examples . . . . and as far as I know, we all still have to pay to get the release copy of Black Shark.
Now go enjoy the Su25T campaigns and whet your appetite for Black Shark . . . .