> your definition of a "beta" is not really the traditional meaning. In a beta, core functionality should mostly be there, but it's expected to be buggy.
I expect bugs, yes, but the "traditional" meaning of beta is that core functionality is done and it's passed through QA and some form of alpha stage with internal and some trusted external testers to catch, at a minimum, glaringly obvious stupidity.
I'll excuse a beta release with some significant but not absolutely critical feature clearly walled off and labelled "this bit doesn't work yet". I'll not excuse one where critical functionality becomes clearly unusable just by virtue of running on a supported platform. That's so beyond the pale for what is -- even if in a twisted/attenuated sense -- a commercial product as to reflect nothing less than utter incompetence.
2. The article is a bit vague (which doesn't help its case), but if the bug is the one I'm thinking of, saying that "the main menu didn't work" is a bit of an exaggeration. I believe the actual issue was that the main menu didn't work in Explorer. Broken Explorer support is very common among beta software unless they're specifically targeting Explorer specially.