I don’t mean it in the sense of, “did they forget about developing it?”, because they’ve been adding new things to it off and on for quite a while now. (I particularly love the rich text editor they added!)
What I mean is, did they forget about bumping it up beyond beta? It’s been beta for a really, really long time now, hasn’t it? It’s probably one of the most rock solid ‘beta’ releases I’ve ever used. Gmail has basically replaced any other email solution I’d ever used: email desktop apps (Outlook Express, Eudora), as well as other webmail solutions (Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc.)
I suppose it doesn’t really make much difference whether it’s considered a stable release or a beta release; a ton of people are going to be using it as their primary email solution, regardless. I guess it just bothers me because I’m a picker of nits. Gmail doesn’t strike me as a beta app at all, so it doesn’t need the ‘beta’ label. 
there was this article on digg that gmail’s supposed to be coming out of beta soon. i wonder wat else they can add to it though, its pretty much fully realised already. i’ve been using it exclusively for yonks, outlook schmoutlook.
Yeah, it’s extremely solid. Dunno’ what else they plan on adding to it. But, it is Google we’re talking about, so maybe they’ll add a few more amazing features before the final release comes out.
I have a t-shirt with the Google Earth logo on the front, and on the back is a picture of the Earth and it says “4.6 billion years and STILL in beta?!”
LOL.