@Wizzard: 6.5 is already final
(21234) and we've gone through.. 6.5.0.1, 6.5.0.20, 6.5.0.40 we're working on 6.5.0.50 right now, which is now final with 21280
At the very least we'll make it to 6.5.1 before WM7, but I expect it to go beyond that too
Let's see if I can recall the build naming convention...
212xx = AKU1, all builds leading up to and including WM 6.5
213xx = MOT motorola
214xx = forget
215xx = SAM samsung
216xx = HTC htc
217xx = COM1, continuing dev of 6.5.0.1 - 6.5.0.40
218xx = COM2, continuing dev of 6.5.0.50
219xx = MD, feature branch (unstable features are added here, backported to 218xx (this tree is based on COM1, so older base os code, but the UX code is newer [user experience])
22xxx = SEMC sony ericsson
almost all of the oem branches are based off 21234 (iirc SAM was based off an older build than that) - the oem's requested their modifications, and msft did them, incremented build number - some of these trees have stopped receiving modifications already.
For most of you, for the moment, 218xx is the branch to follow (but they might change the number now that COM2 is done as of 21820)
Most of the current focus is on UX as the backend code is mostly at the goal, so we should be seeing some nice changes to the theming api's etc. that will allow us much more modification of the UI (iirc the end goal is complete skinnability and finger friendliness - nothing left over from the old 6.1 interface that used a stylus, essentially)
They might be bandying about the idea of licensing resco keyboard to replace the stock non-finger-friendly keyboard.
Also, an interesting tidbit, any device that has a dpad and IE6 is *required* to have support in the display driver for a mouse pointer, and support in the dpad driver for a mouse pointer, to allow for things like javascript mouseovers that pull drop-down menus