>>>>>>> Oh, and I'm desperately waiting for the VS2K8 Beta 2 - will it be dropped soon?

You'll see Beta2 ship later this week - so only a few more days now.
Thanks,
Scott

ScottGu wrote that Beta2 will ship later this week in a comment on his post announcing IronRuby.

And it's said to be 99% feature complete. I think I can exceed my traffic cap next week.