I'll be quite honest and forthright here for the sake of transparency and clarification.
First, I'd like to start with emphasis on the differences between Alpha and Beta. The things you guys are suggesting (smaller, more incremental changes to disrupt the ebb and flow of gameplay) is closer to Alpha than Beta.
Alpha is where we put experimental code, features, and assets into play. It's based on a server-filling core group of testers and Devs. Things that are in Alpha are concepts and ideas, and can sometimes be fairly unstable. We've finally got the game to a point where is fairly stable (more stable than the friggin BF3 beta anyway) and we don't want to alienate whatever playerbase we still have with bug-laden and unfinished/unoptimized code and assets which could lead to performance loss and/or crashing.
Beta is where we put nearly finished assets and feature-complete code in to test on a community scale. From there things can be balanced, adjusted, and optimized for gameplay and performance and larger-scale testing and bug reporting. For a single asset to reach Beta Status is has to go through the various phases (from Art Side) through multiple artists (each with their own real-life obligations) before it even reaches Alpha Status.
As artists, our assets can crash a game just as easily as code (hence the Thor and Huit for example, which is being redone for performance with the upcoming .52 release) and we have to be thorough before placing anything in-game that could potentially hurt player performance detrimentally. If we release something that hurts players, they'd expect an immediate rollback or patch update to rectify the issue, which means if we don't even know what the problem is yet, it won't be an immediate fix and would lead to resentment and frustration. It's easier to find and iron out these issues in Alpha than it is in Beta.
On that note, one reason it's easier to fix in Alpha than Beta is because we can update and revert our live builds at any time. The community cannot do this. For us to give an update, then decide we don't like it, we'd have to do a bunch of stuff I don't know much about, like creating a new build, adding another section to the SVN for versioning, and would make it even more time-consuming and issue-laden and pull resources from other projects. When a player (especially a new one) has to download 6 patches per-version, one after a another through the updater, they would get bored/angry/disenchanted with the process and it would leave a negative impression.
Now, on a more cliché note, the main problem is that everyone has lives they have to attempt to to pay the bills and become educated in their pursuits. This mod can only be a full-time job when you have no job (been there, done that) and I do what I can to distribute assets in the most effective, and time-efficient method possible by understanding my artists, their skill levels, and their time-constraints. Now, even optimally, there is a large delay between the passing of assets between phases (such as Concept, Design, Modeling High, Modeling Low, UV Mapping, Baking Maps, Texturing Assets, Animating Assets, Creating LoD's/physics proxies/helpers/collision mesh and so forth). So, unless we acquire more artists (team member in general) we can only work so fast.
So, as you can see, there are various uncontrollable variables to game development (in a volunteer team especially), and slating asset release estimates is a fruitless effort that leads to a glimmer of hope in a sea of disappointment. We try and avoid that and despite the wait between patches (which we sincerely apologize for) we do our best to pump this stuff out as fast as possible, and as soon as something is done, we release it. We hate sitting on content any more than you hate waiting on content.
So please bear with us while we continue to develop the greatest Mechwarrior Game ever created.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
