The essential answer to this has already been posted by Andreas:

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-December/085923.html

Especially problematic are the "researchers" items:

1) new compiler framework
2) refactoring of SystemDictionary
3) Traits

Here is what I think about these:

1) I don't want to comment much on the compiler framework, except that I 
think that it is critical to get this done properly, if it goes in.

2) The ongoing attempt of refactoring SystemDictionary seems to be an 
odyssey without much planning so far. This is not the right way to do a 
"refactoring" of a kernel part.

3) Traits is a questionable language extension. It is questionable 
because language extensions to Smalltalk themselves are questionable.

Here are Squeak's current problems ordered by importance:

1) library
2) speed
3) documentation
4) community organization
5) public relations and awareness
6) language

I am not going to bet on the exact order of 2 to 5 but I think it is 
clear that "library" is THE problem. Far behind at the end comes 
"language", simply because Smalltalk is still one of the best, if not 
the best programming language.

Smalltalk has a remarkable cost-performance ratio. Every addition to the 
language may worsen this ratio. Yet half of all people tend to ask the 
question:

- What benefit has the language extension/change?

But this is the wrong question. With this kind of judgement Squeak's way 
is paved to a concept-overloaded monster like Java.

Instead we should ask:

- What real problem does the language extension/change solve?

A real problem is of course not meant to be the absence of a benefit in 
a specific situation, the type of advantage the first question is about.

A real problem of a language is one that is ubiquitous when programming 
in that language, something which occurs literally every line, which 
really goes straight to the heart of its basic mechanism.

I think it will be really difficult to uncover and to distill such a 
core problem in Smalltalk and it is my conviction that Traits is not 
solving such a main problem.

As a consequence I think we should not include Traits into the official 
release. Instead I guess some people would like to see a specific 
"researchers edition" of Squeak from the Berne group.

This could be a fork in the sense of Avi's suggestion of having 
"recurring forks" - tall narrow trees with stubby branches coming off it 
at every level:

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2004-December/086612.html

regards,
Martin