Get used to it - we are all willing to test it (desperately) - i mean it's not like we haven't paid for this anyway... but FD do seem to pee all over themselves when it comes to the public beta process and communication. When they launch the beta test I'd prefer to see a specific section of the frontier site dedicated to it - so that issues surrounding the beta don't get lost in the forums AND it also means that people can be informed as to how things are progressing without us bombarding FD on the forums.
I'm not thinking of a sub forum - more a "ticketing" system so "Reported issues" can be quickly sifted through and FD can advise accordingly. Even if it's just to say - "no news yet, but if more people can advise if they are experiencing this then we can get a feel for the scale of it" - ie. a "voting" type system.
I dunno, just thinking out loud really but to be honest FD if your Dev model for ED is going to carry on over its projected (hopefully) 10 year lifespan, with this "beta" concept/process then I really think you need to rethink how you are getting the feedback - this is a two way process is it not?. You ask us to test it - we test. It goes wrong, we say what happened, but trying to find out if others have had this problem or what they have done to resolve it is a job in itself, it should be segregated from the main support area I think, and run in a different way.
If its a resource issue at FD i've the time, and cash to setup a website right now to do this - just a nod from FD is all I need...