Well as Baron tried to explain, these aren't really patches. They are just steps in the process to developing a patch. The only thing a software company can do that's worse then not supporting a game is to release patches that make things worse then they were before. The beta process helps to prevent that by having a group of people test the changes to make sure no new bugs have crept into the code. Otherwise you get people screaming about how bad the company is because they released a "broken" patch.
Every company does this, it's just that normally the beta steps arent' announced to the public. And for exactly this reason.
[ February 12, 2004, 01:10: Message edited by: geoschmo ]