Aw, thanks Fluff. The deadlines are what they are; they're important so I don't drift too much and lose a sense of urgency, but I know people are patient. On the other hand, I really want to get this out and rolling before TOO long, and if my current estimates end up being right, total dev time will be about 3 years; I REALLY don't want to go much beyond that. But I'm glad people are still excited after all this time.
And as for cuddling, there IS the Scratch date path (eventually) so we'll see.