The major release was due to a number of reasons. Possibly just and only marketing related.
The time since last release was a major one, the other one was that they thought that by giving a point release would be too discouraging to the community. Let's admit it... it is a point release status. Nowhere near the release anyone expects, even the developers themselves shouldn't consider this a proper major release.
To the people wanting high-poly support and shadow bug gone: The toolbar arranging bug isn't still solved! Give it a try! 
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There are new icons! horray!
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Dynamic Components! Great ruby script it could have gone on the market on its own,... to interfere it with the Sketchup releases. It had already started to happen from the community... take a look a the dynamic dimensions ruby.
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Layout! Wonderful!,... although if they could actually see some usage statistics they'd probably ditch the whole project.
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Style Builder! nice!... again, offer it as an addon. Don't package it with the main distribution of SketchUp.
Yes I am being hard. But you know what I've been waiting for a long time for this release and what I basically see is a big excuse,... and this is from an end user. there is no other feedback to see. It was a long journey waiting for Sketchup 7 and from what I can see there was nothing worth waiting 2 years for.
Now I am feeling betrayed because I have suggested Sketchup to a number of people myself. I think that I haven't really pushed them to the right choice of software. Sketchup is taking a wrong direction.
The trial I downloaded surely isn't a Pro version of anything. I remain at the 6.x versions until further notice of improvement, I'd also like to see the scripters continue to develop on the 6.x version so that Google sees what has happened and quickly amend this. The less the community embraces this the better and quicker the next release will be,... note this down.
The old king is dead,... long live the same-old king!
