Realized I didn't answer one of your questions: How did they handle it?
-Excellent! We've been beta-testing a few games now, but nothing could compare to the support and communication for this one. And you could even notice that bugs were taken care of, unlike some other games in beta where nothing seems to happen and you feel you're talking/reporting to a wall, stone, swamp or similar, whileas the only changes you notice is that item malls or such are put up for testing with full prices for the beta testers... lol
I never really checked out what we could and could not talk about, so I just kept totally quiet. lol. Discussions were big in the forums though (which of course were only accessible for CB testers). Those discussions were all wiped when switching to Open Beta and free speech