The second "rule" we've come up with due to these last minute commits, is this.... again, I'm sorry if anybody gets offended...
Shortly (a day or so) prior to the generation of a Beta or a final release we will call "Commit Cuttoff". This means that no developer should commit changes to the core without getting secondary approval from another CMS core developer.
This is done to have a second set of eyes look at the code before it's committed. That second set of eyes should actually test the code and make sure that the change works for them, and doesn't introduce anything obviously wrong.
We're not trying to impede development of CMS here people, we encourage your contributions. However we are trying to ensure that the released product doesn't have any glaring errors, and to generally improve on the quality, and the appearance of quality to the users.
Of course, the benevolent dictator is excused from this condition.... After all, it is his project