The only reason that we’ve had more RCs than you would prefer in the past is because bugs didn’t get discovered sooner. We are not planning on releasing a RC1 with known issues (at least, serious ones), but the fact is that once we release a RC1 it will get a lot more testing, because of all the messaging in the community to avoid using nightlies for serious work. It’s kind of a catch-22 from the development team’s perspective. I have no doubt that the extra testing that will happen because people who were unwilling to use a nightly are willing to use RC1 will uncover bugs that we will need to fix before a final release.
I still hope the name “beta” would be used when the software is clearly still under polishing.
The meaning of beta and RC are different, and I think we are using RC correctly.
A beta is typically used to gather feedback from users, with the understanding that planned work is still underway and the software is not finished. A RC means there is not more planned work going in to the release. Of course it can generate unplanned work in the form of new bug reports.