1. The complaints about beta I felt were misplaced. They shouldn't have made the beta default for anyone (and perhaps they should have refined it just a little more first...) but I think Slashdotters seriously overreacted to what was an easy to opt-out of test of a new UI. (And frankly, with D1 broken - thanks Pudge - and D2 horrible, I was looking forward to someone doing something about the /. UI.)
I don't think they were misplaced. I mean, I don't think that the grousing was because the beta was opt-out. The anger was because "this is coming. And it's an absolute disaster."
The Beta absolutely eviscerated the comments system. Slashdot is, first and foremost, about its comments, not its stories, not its editorials, but the user comments. The comments and discussions are the entire reason for coming, and the Beta was all too similar to other poorly-designed flashy sites that are all about flashy stories and ads, with comments added in as a half-functional afterthought. It's like the Beta design team had no idea what made Slashdot... Slashdot.
It was a clear "fuck you" to the readers of the site that a system that was so clearly inferior would be put in place. There were more pictures, the story layout was... it was ok. But the comments section was awful and that's why there was such a firm revolt over it. Fuck Beta started popping up in every unrelated story because people knew, correctly, that if Beta went live, Slashdot would go the way of Digg. You couldn't have a more important discussion than that. The site shutting down. That's what we faced. Nothing less than a user revolt would save it, and so far (knock on wood), it's saved.