The engineering team is 2x the size that it was at the time of the Oracle acquisition. 8.0 is the release where some of the investments are starting to pay off :)

Invisible indexes was one of my FRs, so very happy to hear you like it. For others: http://mysqlserverteam.com/mysql-8-0-invisible-indexes/

Labs are merged into regular trunk when they pass QA qualification. A list of what is involved is here: http://anithagopi.blogspot.ca/2013/05/new-feature-qualificat...