CMS Are these bugs or features?
 

I am really enjoying getting to know my CMS installation better. However, I have noticed a few quirks. Some may be a results of my own ignorance, but a few are clearly bugs. I will try to be brief.

• I wrote a 3-article series, and chose publish dates of 1/4/10, 1/7/10, and 1/11/10, respectively.
• I checked the preview flag.
• I checked the published flag.

First question... did I need to check the published flag, or will the date/time to publish toggle that flag for me?

• After toggling the flag, CMS posted automated notices of the articles. That was misleading. I thought those notices would be queued after the specified time. (Bug? or my misuse?)
• Some tried to read the article, and naturally they could not. However, they were able to leave comments. Should they be able to leave comments on previewable articles?
• The comments showed up in the "recent comments" pane on the front page. Should comments on previewable articles (unpublished) be listed in the recent comments?
• When I discovered the automated posts, I physically deleted them. When I did so, the comments on the unpublished previewable article were either hidden or deleted from the article, though they still appeared in the recent comments pane on the Front Page! So, I clicked on the comment-links, and got an error that the links were invalid. So, put the article back in preview, clicked again, and the links were still invalid, and the comments were still not visible after the article, and the comments were still listed and quoted in the recent comments preview pane. This is most definitely a bug, indicating some subtle inconsistency in my tables now.

So, now I have the following questions:

1. What is the proper usage of the published radio button, in connection with the published date?
2. How do I go about fixing my tables, which clearly have article comments recorded, even if they are no longer linkable from the preview pane, and are not viewable from the article?
3. What are the intended (versus actual) consequences of physically deleting an automated post? Should that effect the comments of a published previewable article whose date has not yet come?
4. If I believe an auto-post is premature, how can I deal with that, without corrupting my database? Should I have just deleted it, without physically deleting it? I'm not just asking what your intention is in this question, but what will work right now.
5. When will your next update be that will start dealing with these little bugs? These bugs won't cripple me, and going to 4.0 is still a net benefit, but I'm not willing to free up my moderators to freely use CMS until these unintended consequences have mostly gone away.