the last 15 years shows that the number of people who want to build is a tiny fraction of those who just want an image they can burn. If we focus on creating a "library" of burnable images, that can be the release cycle.
So, thinking as I type: John Lewis is Da Man in terms of maintaining a system that lets people pull an image, flash it automagically, recover, and so on, all without having to build it.
So how about we forget about release cycles for the tree and think in terms of the problem of distribution of good images for people? Does that make things easier? I don't know.
ron