Well, here's the good news:
The new version of the software _looks_ great
I've included color-coded conversations & chats, volume control on alerts, color icons in the buddy list, and lots of other fixes.
The bad news is that for those of you who are operating without MDS, there are some significant differences in the code required to maintain your network connections. I've been working all day trying to meet my 'next week' deadline, but I wasn't able to tackle all the changes necessary today. I haven't stopped working on it, but it looks like I'm going to fall prey to the all-too-common software release date slip.
Thanks to everyone for their patience, I'm working on it!