The Blender Developer meeting notes from Dec 26th, 2010 has some interesting news for blender 2.5x users.
http://www.blendernation.com/2010/12/27 ... r-26-2010/
It looks like Blender is soon approaching a new beta release cycle for the next 2.56 beta, As early as this weekend. They also mention a possible stable pre-release a few months later.
If Blender's API stops changing so much with each beta release, we may finally get to work with an updated Blender to Octane export tool. Though, the Blender development commit notes from http://cia.vc/stats/project/Blender still show the occasional API change.