To avoid a repeat of these previous events, WOTC has been taking everything regarding version 3.0 very slowly and carefully.  The company has also been very straightforward with the MTGO community, updating players concerning 3.0 development via a blog, message boards, and the game's website as often as possible.  

As of this writing there is no set release date for MTGO 3.0, for example.  A recent blog entry has this to say on the subject:

"While we obviously want to get version 3 out as soon as we can, the team isn't married to a specific date. Our official release date is still the first half of 2007, and that's looking fairly tight. However, the tasks that seem to be scheduled to run the longest right now (referred to as Critical Path, as many of you know) are in other areas that are unrelated to the UI. So while there aren't any plans to specifically slip the launch date for UI issues, it's also safe to say that the [user interface] isn't going to be short-changed in favor of pushing the product out the door."

That user interface (UI) is the chief concern of many involved in the 3.0 beta test.  While it provides more room for the actual gameplay than the current version of MTGO, I found it difficult to navigate at first and even hard to read.  Live chat has been moved from the bottom of the screen to a narrow sidebar, making it very difficult to follow a conversation or the turn by turn game log that many players find so helpful.  The old version's various room buttons for casual and tournament games have been replaced by a menu system that is far more confusing than it needs to be.  But, this is beta and that's exactly the sort of thing that the testers are supposed to be, well, testing.

After poking around a bit with the settings, seeking help from the moderators, and looking at the information in the aforementioned blog i found that several of these issues are not really issues at all.  The weird vertical chat box can be moved and resized, the new client resizes nicely to fit your monitor (while it does have the issue of making the play area smaller if you increase the height of the screen, the area is larger when you increase the width - those with wide screen monitors will experience a larger play area at this time).  Considerable improvements have been made to the way players can browse their card collections and the MTGO deckbuilder has received a complete overhaul, making it much easier to find just the right cards and check tournament legality and other statistical information.