I don't understand how we can all sit here and slam the vB5 beta so religiously. It obviously has some major flaws at the moment but is making progress. I've been watching it carefully. Remember that it's BETA at the moment and has gremlins.
It's a complete rewrite so let's just see where it goes. It may just surprise us.
For me, there are two separate issues- the product itself and the business practices around the sale of it.
1) The product- like I mentioned earlier, the underlying coding has been shredded by people more knowledgeable than me. However, I am smart enough to know that more than 100 db queries to load a page is not going to work- no how, no way. The eternity it takes to load a page does not seem to be anything that can be "fixed" through any kind of normal "beta" development cycle. And...one of their selling points (see below) the most mods and addons available- none of them will work with vB5.
2) Business practices- For me, there are three subparts to this:
a) Past track record. vb4 presale and lack of delivery of any promised features that made the Suite what it was supposed to be. I.e., usable CMS, free mobile style, and a million (ok, slight hyperbole) features that never materialized. It took them more than 2 years to just squash bugs.
b) Changing license terms- Transfers (even among domains that you still own) have changed- without warning or notice to current customers. And they still can't answer just exactly what the rule are. Similar thoughts around now paid support (which will only last 30 days IIRC without an upgrade).
c) Pricing structure- Software sales is, it goes without saying, a business. And, yes, vB should get paid for delivery of a quality product. However, given their track record, I have no faith that they will not basically halt development of vB4, pushing everyone to vB5 which is not anywhere near Beta quality much less Gold. Given this, I also have no faith that vB5 will not muddle along without promised features (125+ which they can't describe), until they decide vB6 is next cash grab...assuming they are still in the forum business 2 years from now.
All that said, if someone is happy with the product, likes it, finds it meets their needs...well, I don't get it, but they are entitled to like what they like. I hope it works well for them!