M@
Still I'm wondering why.....why one week earlier? Surely the intention must be for pre-release user feedback with the goal of making alterations.
Well I'm just speculating here, but there were two updates that had hot fixes about a week afterward. One was when upsampling caused problems with projects that had tempo variations. The other was when a Control Bar update caused the custom buttons to always stick to the right. If these had been identified, it's possible the fixes would have been incorporated by the time the official release came out.
Again just speculation here, but it also seems to offer a bit of a "security blanket" for Cakewalk to have confirmation that all is well with a release. Sort of like listening to a mix over different speakers before signing off on it