I think we all knew this. But rc4 was about the last one before formal release, and Stas promised since rc2 or something that there would be no API change (I'm not blaming him on this though).
Yes, please don't blame Stas for this. None of us wanted to make this change, and Stas was especially concerned about the impact on users. It was not done lightly or without consideration for what it would mean to people already running pre-releases.
- Perrin
