Limewire around the 2.6.x and 2.7.x were commin out with a new version around every two weeks and now 2.8.x is out it is takin a lot longer.Could you guys at least release a beta here and there now?

There will be a 2.9 release soon which will be more or less a 3.0 beta. The latest developer versions can be obtained from www.limewire.org. Simply get a cvs client (WinCVS or something), the latest Java Development Kit (from www.sun.com - usually a user will not install the JDK but the JRE because it is smaller) and ant from ant.apache.org.

There are compile and run scripts in the source code that will take of everything else.

AFAIK you have to enter the repository and module name in WinCVS and other cvs clients (I use the cervisia)
Repository ":pserver:guest@cvs.limewire.org:/cvs"
Module "limewire"