JD, I'm focused on making sure the fork is successful right now. I think the next approach I'll take with the block hanging issue will be to update to the latest core Bitcoin code to see if that helps, but it'll be after the fork at the earliest.
Please don't take this the wrong way, this is not meant to be sarcastic, but how are you 'focussing' on making sure the fork is successful? Are you staring at your screen all day watching the blocks count up to 8710? You haven't even made the effort to bump this topic up once a day so I guess I'm taking care of that today.
You have to agree that the very best way to get everybody to update his client would be by releasing a (more) stable version.