@[deleted],
While I understand your sentiment, I think that you mean to say "Such long pauses between" STABLE "releases".... And you would not be wrong it has been a very long time. The time between 1.6ST and 1.7ST is a huge amount of time for such a small increment in the version number. However we've constantly recommend that people not use 1.7RCs for production environments. People should utilize the latest stable build at all time for live servers. So I humbly disagree with your constant beta assessment.
We have made some changes to how osticket is developed which include utilizing github in the hopes that more people will submit their changes and hopefully we can capture and utilize some of the talent in the community to speed up the development cycles.
If you have further constructive criticism and/or feed back of things that you would like to see changed, and/or would like to donate some of your time to the project we would be more than happy to receive.
Have a great weekend!