Maybe Firefox could just have weekly builds, like Thunderbird?
This means that all of the testers are using the same build for a substantial amount of time, and any new bugs are for specifically that build - not "sometime after last Tuesday". Scott can see what changes were made for that build, so bugs can be tracked more easily (in my experience, anyway).
Scott also announces each new build and hears bugs specific to that build. So Tb gets a status update for each build, every week - this keeps the channels of communication open between user and developer. Users respond directly with "bug x isn't actually fixed", or "regression alert!". Scott can then say he's working on it/thinks he's fixed it/will get to it soon, etc.
All of this matches up pretty well with Freshmeat's
Feedback for Bug Reporters article.
Ben's announcements usually come in the form of locked threads; this makes users feel distant from the decision because they can't directly respond to it. Simply unlocking those threads might help. By contrast, Thunderbird's and Sunbird's announcements usually aren't locked and one can converse with the devs - great for morale.
You did the right thing by avoiding a repeat of the "Phoenix needs a new name" fiasco. "That's it. It's Firefox. Tough - we're not changing it" worked much better, especially once we knew the reasons behind the approach.
There has been concern that Firefox was put out with several nasty bugs in tact; its roadmap says that 0.9 ill have all of the planned features and 1.0 will fix the bugs. If so,
please hold back Firefox 1.0 until
every single known bug is eliminated. This doesn't mean bugs in Gecko, or RFEs, but what's there should work perfectly - no exceptions.
My friend tried Firefox yesterday and when it crashed once upon loading a video clip, he went straight back to IE. He didn't notice the download manager, the smart keywords or the text zooming. The point of this is that quality is preferable to quantity, as Phoenix's original remit suggested. It doesn't matter how many features are missing from 1.0; but it matters greatly how many fixes are.
Of course, this doesn't stop Firefox from being an excellent browser