I want to thank everyone who has posted here with the information I was looking for.

I have decided to wait for the official release of the new version.  I am hoping that I can simply upgrade, install VMWare Tools, and move on with my life with copy/paste and time sync.  This is a selfish decision on my part, based on my workload and the risk of breaking my working Windows environment.  In the best of all worlds, I would enjoy the "fun" of installing the beta and be able to contribute to the process of identifying issues, but it's not that world for me.

I just want to say that I do appreciate the efforts of those of you who labor to make the product straightforward and reliable for customers like me.  Thank you.