Well, the flip is this, and I forgot which releases these were as it was a while back. But we were on a beta 9.1.X release and then and earlier production release was out with a 9.1.x.x before the beta went final.
At least that's how I recall it.
So yea, who doesn't like on going development, especially on a free product.
But when keeping track of issues and having several deployments out in the field, it becomes an issue. I would prefer more effort resume on 9.3 and 10 branches because if 9.1 continues to be developed then those newer rels are further down the road.
IX has a finite amount of money and devs. How cool would it be if a Rothschild just said hey FreeNAS, here's a cool mil :)