Rationalizing expectations never hurts anyone as long as these rationalizations are real. For delivering a service, where one can put down SLA and similar contracts, it's not. The expectations can be met if the proper paths are being walked.
I've been an alpha/beta tester for some myself. I'm graduate Computer Sciences engineer (the broad area: from building networks, programming applications, testing, deployment and so on), with a good number of years of experience behind the belt, I can say that I'm still completely taken by surprise of the setup a lot of companies use with on-line services.
Edited to add: and yes, I'm writing this, because of some exploit was found, causing the whole service to be put down at aroundish 11:30AM my time on Sunday... And for how long, nobody knows...
So bringing it down at unusual times for LL is not an issue; they could do upgrades too.
SL is an animal like no other in the internet. Even before I signed up I did expect lots of funny things to happen. What they are doing is what VRML long ago was trying to achieve which is turn cyberspace into a more complete virtual experience.
We as residents have been given functionality unprecedented in the realm of MMOGs or perhaps in all of the intenet. As a computer programmer you definitely would know the kinds of scrapes and bruises LL would have to face while developing this. Most people won't.
LL can't afford a backup system. And given all they have to go through to get SL going I never expected anything close to 24/7.
So far? Everything, including this current attack, that's happend to SL has fallen squarely in my window of expectations with only one exception.
That exception had nothing to do with development mistakes. It's simply opening the registration process before an anti-griefer toolkit was completed.
Playing the bean counter for a moment, SL is cheaper than all the major MMOGs out there $6 a month vs $15-20. I've gotten more substance out of SL than I have from any other MMOG. To me that's a really good deal. Now you know the biggest reason downtimes don't bother me at all.
