[gnufx]

Yes, except that I don't think that's niche. With darcs, I have a collection of patches available from developments/contributions, and a release is a set I'm happy with on top of the previous release tag. If one of them causes trouble during testing, it can typically just be removed from the set. (Obviously it doesn't always work that cleanly, but it typically does.) When happy, tag and release. It's a pleasant model that's straightforward enough for someone who's only been maintaining large projects since the early days of networked CVS.