I think the key is that what is done to merge for 1.8 have significant substance not just be a "nice to have". Users aren't indicating confusion so much as they are indicating performance issues and mishandled or unhandled use cases. Better information is good, but real progress on the items giving users true pain would be much, much better. It may be that 1.8 can't wait for the time it might take to tackle these items (and I don't want to see it driving that release where we find ourselves with another 2+ years without new functionality), but progress on those items has to start to ever bring relief to the users. Delivering something around merging in 1.8 isn't as important as making that progress so that relief can be seen to be around the corner.
Bob
