Some idol thoughts and another prespective as to why it's taking so long to develop Bryce
1. It has die hards fans & very vocal(sound familiar). The don't want the interface changed...they don't want other things changed and they are very vocal about it.
2. Yet at the same they are demanding V5I & higher end app functionality. You can't addon modern day technologies to ancient code.
IMHO you can't have your cake & eat it too.
I think Daz is stuck between calming the Bryce masses & moving forward. They already upset the masses by putting the D|S button in Bryce, since now this allows with more EASE the importing of Poser figures & more NVIATWAS.
I don't use Bryce, so have I no stake in whether it succeeds or fails.
Oh & Please Please Please in Carrara don't change the shader editor to a NODE editor or a Bryce type DTE....I might have to jump off a cliff at that pointO_O