If Apple’s engineers are on track to deliver these cleanup goals early, they simply hand their work over to marketing and start work on their goals for 10.7. If they are running behind, it indicates something isn’t usable in its current form and needs to be refactored or redeveloped which probably won’t happen in the 10.6 timeframe.

Because 10.6 is not a feature driven release, Microsoft’s shipping of Windows 7 will have more influence on the decision when to package and ship 10.6 than Jordan Hubbard will.

I’ll use that last one.
Now – I think Snow Leopard may only be evolutionary, but I’m anticipating performance will surprise – waddya out there think?

“let slip” means to let go, release, as is to let go of the expected release date and have it occur later.

I’d drop the word “slip” entirely. Why not:

“Apple may be releasing Snow Leopard sooner”

or “The Cat May Leap Sooner than Expected: Snow Leopard in the Spring!”

The title of this article is misleading – it reads as though Apple has slipped the release date, meaning that have put it off until later. You want to say ‘lets slip’, which means to reveal.

Amazing at it might sound I don’t want Snow Leopard to ship too soon. The last three .0 releases have all required quick .1 patches to fix problems so I’d rather Apple wait a couple of months and ship that .1 as .0.