fwiw, FreeBSD 5.x was the "learning experience" where SMP was completely rewritten. No one mourned when we retired that branch. 6.x was far more stable than 5.x, and 7.0 built on that by adding more scalability. (7.0 was much better than any .0 release of anything I've ever seen). 8.0, which was just announced, contains even more scability work in the network stack and USB. So, FreeBSD has come a long way since the 5.x times.

The fall of the Soviet Union proves you wrong.