I'd pretty much held my tongue on this, but am now on the "Stern, be more open about the state of the code" bandwagon.
I regret buying Metallica. From now on I will wait until Stern puts out complete-ish code, then take a look at purchasing. I've been waiting six months for modes to materialize...modes that are printed right on the playfield. "Subject to change" and all that, I know. Fool me once.
It's my own fault for buying in too quickly, but it still sucks. Instead of getting Metallica early I should have bought two or three classic games, then made a more informed decision about Metallica later on.
It feels like I've wasted months of time waiting for code when I could've spent that money buying and playing other games instead. Never again.