I'd like to read Matt and DrMike's comments.
I would too actually. I don't remember saying that. Donncha has mentioned in Trac that if an error occurs with the core files, it needs to be brought up over on WP's trac instead of WPMU's trac.
I myself have no issue with hacking away at code, core or otherwise. Only issue is remembering which files I've hacked. I've forgotten on occasion.
And I'm just a volenteer here. Nothing offical. I get stuff comp'ed over at wp.com and someone at Automattic paid for a couple months of hosting with my previous host before they went under. (I wonder if they ever got the refund that they were promised.)
I'm trying to remember to do a backup of the database everyday but with 200+ blogs, I'm up about 10megs of backedup zip. I need to figure out a method of backing up the actual site though. CPanel does it but I don't have an offsite ftp to upload it to. (I do actually with my own servers but there's some legal crap that prevents me from doing so.)
16 more boxes come January. I'm already earmarking one of them for me. Unless my one corporate client takes all of them like he did last time I bought a bunch. :(