I wish you'd use LangPop.com for stats instead of TIOBE:-) I agree about the marketing/communication aspect of things though: I was under some sort of impression that 1.9 was, like "odd numbered Linux kernels" some sort of permanent-beta. I'm not quite sure where I got that idea, but a few other people I know seemed to be under the same impression. Something else that might help is a prominently located guide/tutorial to upgrading to 1.9.
I believe that 1.9 was supposed to be a beta (1.5 and 1.7 were), but the plans for 2.0 got to be too ambitious and there came a need for a version number between 1.8 and 2.0. I suppose it could have been called 1.10 but there were presumably good reasons.
