I have been using Gmail since early 2005. I believe I was an early adopter. It was called “beta” software back then. Perfectly sensible.
OK, it is late 2007. I have over 5000 messages in my inbox (and that is even after a few month hiatus where I went back to Hotmail). Gmail has millions and millions of users.
So, why, oh why, is Gmail still called “Beta”?
I would really appreciate someone giving me an answer to that question. My thinking is that it is an “out” for Google in case something goes wrong with Gmail — “Oh, it is beta software. Use at your own risk. If you are adverse to beta software risk, wait until the official release of Gmail, which will be……” NEVER!! 
I’d agree with your thinking. By keeping the “beta” tag on there, they can continue to modify or tweak their product without creating versions like gmail 1.0, 2.0 etc. They can also use it as an excuse for errors too…as you pointed out.
Maybe it has more to do with marketing. Maybe people think they’re cool when their using something on the “bleeding edge” or is “new” and so they leave the Beta thing on there for that reason? The “beta” tag clearly not scaring people away like it used to…
Yeah, definitely not scaring people. I use it for both business and personal email services. Maybe they just don’t want to redraw the logo again w/o the beta word in it — too much of a time waster for such a fast moving compnay
I bet when it goes out of beta, the final release version will not be free, but will be part of a suite of SaaS office applications. People who want free mail will be able to continue to use the beta. People who want an improving SaaS email client for professional purposes will have to pay.
Sorry about my grammar,
English isn’t my mother language
Google team like make surprises to the media (news, etc’) .
If one day Microsoft (or any other computer), will do something big, that all the media will talk about, Google also need to do something big.
All the media will talk about “Gmail is out of beta…”
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It’s beta, because it’s still now working so well.
You see in that last month, there service was offline for two hours.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/01/BU2O19H3VT.DTL
Sorry about my grammar,
English isn’t my tang.