Thanks for the excellent advice. Do you think for a beta product, skimping on various things will haunt you even after you go live? Or do you think everything is easily replaceable, and no one will even remember?
I can tell you no one will remember, but that's false for certain values of users. New users will never know the difference. Old users may welcome the change, or despise it. There's a delicate balance between something you know is better for them, and users being stuck in their ways (some justified, some not). See the Office Ribbon. How many people complain anymore about that? In the beginning though, everyone was up in arms. To some extent that's because there was nowhere to move to except Office, but over time the changes become the new norm and people accept that.