1. several hacks went into the release, maybe not the ones you're waiting for, but things like calendar and advanced poll system are already announced for 6.4
2. If you want to have a stable software, bugfixing always as a higher priority than implementing new features, so this is quite normal. Nobody wants a new release that has more bugs then the previous one. So changes are made step by step, which is a good decsision, in my opinion.
3. From my point of view, a forum software that claims to be for high traffic sites should be stable and scalable at first. Play tools are nice to have, but not that important.
