I think everyone hit the nail on the head, this software is about community, the way it works it is a community software and the proof is in the pudding as they say.
From the outset the XF team have been honest with the people here - they have not offered solid deadlines and false promises. VB tried this approach but the problem was they didn't deliver on anything stable, meaning they lost any advantage they previously had - now people are begging for updates instead of concentrating on building upon the platform. I think also VB failed because when VB4 hit beta instead of internal testing it they let the people test it and submit reports and kept us checking on it. That's not our job, we are paying customers - heck, they should be paying us! I digresss.
Here it seems XF team has built a decent platform to build on so everyone is happy to do their bit, they never asked us to buy before seeing the product and I love the little cool things like adding the xmas snow to the forum - its nothing major, but to know someone went out of their way to do it is just really cool.