I am extremely glad that this post has been so constructive and not turned into a mess. I am also very happy a Dev member commented so informatively.
That said, I still feel I was a bit unclear when I was talking about release "Dates."
I feel horrible that I may have implied that we need a date, as in, August 14th September 21st, October 25th, etc.
SO, MOST IMPORTANTLY: It's of course a compromise between quality and quantity. Too little information regarding release and it becomes very ambiguous and frustrating because we don't have a general "goal" to which we can look forward. Too much quality information forces the dev team to rush because of a deadline and we certainly don't want that.
Okay, then what's the compromise? A goal around which we can orient ourselves, such as a general time frame i.e. AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, (not even early august or late September, that already may be too constricting) or even late Summer 09 or early fall 09. These kind of general goals give us a sense of pacing but don't really constrain or bottleneck development. Such quarterly targets also provide a margin of change of around three months. That is a HUGE safety net that's at the same time a very welcome dose of information for many of us ravenous for any inkling of a goal.
Thanks again for the positive response everyone. I'm going to love playing with this community.