IMHO, ED tryed to do it Right, having a Beta for testing, and a Stable release where most of the people is playing.
But many people installed the Beta not for testing, but for having access to new features sooner ... Once OB has more users/servers than the stable version, ED can't make it right anymore.
Making a release takes time, making a game stable takes time, if we can't wait for it, then we better don't ask them to have a stable version. It's our fault, not ED's fault.
Sitll it makes sense the Stable Branch, for offline players, if an OB release breaks completly the game, it will not be pushed to the stable branch.