Thanks Golgot for the summaries! And thanks Alec, Stuart et al. for the comments.
I think I'd just like to say a few things about the exercise as a whole. Something like this generally has multiple purposes including:
1 Feedback gathering and product improvement
2 Marketing
3 Doing something special for a few customers
1. Is the key thing as far as I'm concerned. Running new things past a small group before proceeding to larger groups, is simply pretty elementary good practice.
Disregarding all the other aspects to it, that in itself is a good thing, and I'm glad to see FD following a sensible (and proven) approach.
I don't know that much about some of the people that went but the ones who I'm more aware of certainly have the qualities that you would want from people in that kind of exercise (capability to represent more than just their own view, coherent and logical arguments, an appreciation of realism and practicalities, etc.). Personally I would have liked to have seen someone like MadRaptor or Baton there to represent the planetary geologics and biologics discovery side of things*, but not everyone can go, and overall it looks to have been a good choice of people for a good outcome from this side of the exercise (which I can only assume that people actually want to go well, regardless of whether that constitutes them seeing that things are looking good, or seeing that they're not, and providing useful, constructive and actionable feedback to FD).
Thanks to everyone for the info on how the feedback was taken and FD's attitude throughout. It certainly matches (if not exceeds) that which would be expected from a team which want their product to be well received and successful.
2. Marketing is highly dependent on how it goes, but NDAs are always going to be there for something like this. So long as box 1 is well ticked, then ticking the marketing box is also a good thing. Ultimately marketing, if done right is also important for the ongoing success of a product, so there's no way I would expect (or want) FD to not have a marketing side to the exercise. Again though looking at the group of people who went, there is a good variance in the market reach of the people there, which again provides a positive general inidicator about the whole thing.
3. A bunch of decent people who make a positive contribution to the community got something a bit special. All good there in my view and despite being envious, I'm very pleased for those that went.
Now don't get me wrong, there's a few things that I have specific concerns about*, which I would like to know more about and feed in on, but that doesn't in any way detract from the current exercise, and I have to say that I'm in no way frustrated by the NDAs that are in place, as ultimately the exercise wouldn't happen without them.
Overall, I'm glad to see a good approach being taken, and the reports of how it was conducted are certainly very encouraging. The proof's in the pudding as they say, and I've certainly been around enough to know that how things go at an event can contrast hugely with what actually happens afterwards, but at the moment I have to say it looks like a good job all round, so thanks again to those that went and to FD for doing it.