I have noticed a trend recently.

While there have not been more public pools, there have been a surge of private pools

there are not enough public pools, and as consequence, they are over voted.

So folks are starting private pools to  control number of votes for best payouts.

If you're currently voting for an over-voted public pool, might be worth joining in to a private pool to maximize payouts.

As for new version.. many bugs have been fixed, and there have not been any new bugs reported.  If you are seeing bugs, please report them (there is a bug bounty)