Carl,
I don't think it is using any extra resources. Most of the patches already exist and no one is suggesting patching the 3.x series with new patches.
The official site is extremely user unfriendly, as are all sourceforge sites, so finding the patches is a pain (if they even put them all up there). For example without my UID/GID patch you can't effectivly host multiple sites as different users. The patch is there but it is not at all intuitive to find or even know about.
I will take your word that 4.x will be out soon, but I won't base my plans on it (1. because it is a .0 release and 2. AOL has their own schedule.)
