From a long time mandriva (and now mageia) user POV, for myself I was quite
fine with 6 month release cycle, but at work I'd rather not update too
frequently and same goes for the rest of the family who generally don't care
much for newer versions. And I know that for some people, a big upgrade
every 6 month is a lot of work (and skipping a release is more risky).

I agree and think this the the sight of most of the "normal" users.

Proposal #2 is the right time to discuss, to do greater changes and to test.

Especially testing-time should be a focus to get a standing as very stable distri.

Other hand, we should not hang too close to the nine month.

The release date could be a good "human readable" date:

Mageia 2 = Spring time (2012-03-20)

Mageia 3 = Nicolas (2012-12-06)

Mageia 4 = Revolution (2013-07-14) or Birthday (2013-09-18)

or someting like this

Proposal #3 is too long, for the patience of the users and developers

Magnus