It´s not about “hiding” excitement. It´s about creating unrealistic expectations, for instance by pointing people at progress in Jira and asking them to hurry up before testnet starts…
Some of us questioned the strategy not to announce any development timescales. Only that caused others to respond with rallying calls and downplaying the discussion. To me that´s a sign of weakness and doubt even though the community members state the opposite.
Someone mentioned that providing timescales is not rocket science and you commented that SAFE is in fact rocket science. I don´t know if that´s the case, maybe it is…but what I know is that rocket science as every other project oriented science works with roadmaps and strict timescales. It is not so relevant whether you meet the deadline - it´s relevant that you communicate how you intend to do it. That´s also why it was never a problem that the last roadmaps failed - it is a problem that they weren´t exchanged with better ones. Without roadmap and some sort of timescale project becomes intransparent no matter how many development updates you publish.
Personally I wouldn´t mind if Maidsafe launches a usuable network in 2017 or 2018. To me that´s better than not launching at all. In some cases it may be better not do any coding for one month and focus on how the project can be lead to success. I wouldn´t mind waiting, but I mind not knowing how it is going to be done. The fact that people worked on this project over a decade can be both: an indicator of good development and an indicator that it could easily take 10 more years. Same as the decision to switch to RUST may be understood as smart move or as flippant decision. For now as spectators we cannot say that for sure. Time will tell.
But what do I know? Maybe the team has an awesome timescale, but doesn´t want to reveal it for some reasons.