Glad that adding a ref to esri.css fixed the issue.
We'd like to be more open about our target dates for upcoming releases but the issue is that we occasionally miss our internal target (I know, hard to believe that a software development timeline has slipped...). The closer we get to a release, the more accurate our estimates are so maybe it's reasonable to send out a heads up when we're getting close (one to two weeks away). In the end, we want to keep expectations reasonable. If we start saying "3.3 is 10 days away!", we don't want to anger/let down people when it takes us 12 days. We'll see what we can do going forward.
Regarding the 2.x to 3.x upgrade, you're right�?? that was a big one due to big changes on the Dojo side. Upgrades tend to be more invovled when we move to a newer Dojo version. When we're only updating/adding to modules/classes we provide, the upgrades should be straight forward.