[cautious]

My understanding does not include v4.4x, as I thought there was going to be a quantum jump to v5.x from v4.3x. I see the understanding was incorrect.

I concur with others, the preview looks great. Kudos.

However, I remind that equally important, if not more important than "sexy" new and improved backend, is to lessen the pain and efforts required to upgrade by your team also investing into a solid migration script fully tested and released at the same time the new version is released. I will appreciate less stressfull x-cart upgrades.

On security front - I think this was discussed in another thread - does the v4.4x hash (one-way hash, MAC) the user's passwd so that even the administrator cannot see the actual original value at the backend? Thanks. Keep up the good work.