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Your suggestions is what I expected that being use in steem blockchain. The code is 2+ years old, this is not new. The software development lifecycle should be in place by now otherwise we're F***ED will expect more issues to come, maybe worst.
As @sircork mentioned, we've seen this issues from last updates from 0.9.12 to 0.20, then we rolled back to 0.19.12 due to bugs.
If they need more tester before releasing new hardfork, we have close to 100+ active witnesses willing to participate. But, the problem is many of us are not member of the "secret" witness slacks.
Just as a quick aside, the testnet, test condenser, and instructions on how to connect were announced publicly a month ago on the @steemitdev account, so I do want to point out that it was linked to in public channels on Steem.chat, available and referenced in following Steemit official posts, and had a channel in the steemitdevs discord monitored by developer advocates.
I'm not suggesting that there was enough of a big deal made out of it; every single post from Steemit should have been ended by saying "remember, get on the testnet and try to break things!" and that's part of our communications call... but at the same time, the testnet was in no way hidden away from any witness asking for it in the way that is being insinuated here.
Steem.chat witness channel seems to be up to date and current with information for any and all witness's to participate in testing. If not please let me know so I can look into it.