I know that changing a bunch of models was a last minute 'surprise' to the community but releasing them and freezing at the same time only means that nexuiz in only truly 'open' to the 4 or 5 'core' developers. IMHO. Until the SVN build 4 noobs i never bothered with the svn version and most people still don't. We can test things thoroughly in an open way and still have people awed by all the new stuff in the releases. Only a minority builds the svn version. I don't think enough feedback (no revisions afaik) were allowed to occur preceding this major change. The fact that they are awesome is irrelevant. It's just like the changes to the machinegun (ballistic) physics, which i'll also have to live with.
I would settle for even a community of testers. At least it would mean that enough feedback is there.
Put nexuiz in front of someone who never played it before and you'll be surprised what they say about it.
PS. Morfar, tZork and div are still most awesome.