>any of you regular users of Eclipse have an opinion about how stable
the 
>3.0 series is at this point? Should I just wait for the final release
at 
>the end of June?

Lyle, you would be safe to start using it now. Yes there are a few bugs
but M8 is more than stable enough for proper development usage. There
are a few new features to come in M9 (code folding at last, M9 is also
known as RC1) but they are more moving now to making sure all bugs are
gone.

Rob