All,
FWIW, I'll comment that what we're seeing here is nothing new. We have:
--One invasive patch which everybody (myself included) procrastinated on
reviewing even though we got it early, and:
--One "must have" big complex patch which arrived very late in the
development cycle.
These are our two reasons for every release delay I can think of. In
prior releases, HOT, PITR, Windows, etc., all presented the same issues.
--Josh Berkus