That's understood.. kind of like a 'pre-release' for lack of a better term.
The part of the question was particularly regarding not being able to find 'signs of change' for a whole year essentially..
> "There are only Tags up until v0.70.6"
.. admittedly the statement made on July 10 about the 0.80 builds and link are not readily obvious and requires a bit of digging.
I did not attempt to answer most points in the Original Post because, lots of points and Hurricane threat.. but I felt this was a quick and more immediate response to his situation and assumed someone would jump in and tackle the others.
Additionally, ty @Masternama8000 ... heck I didn't even know of some of those changes :)