There is a lot of speculation, doubt and excitement over the news trickling out about Expression Engine 2.0. I’m a bit cautiously optimistic, as usual. Some screenshots are up on Derek Allard’s blog. It looks interesting but Veerle’s design is really divergent from the look that Jesse cam up with. Not sure how I feel about it yet. Everything feels a bit too large. Reserving judgement until I see more.

I’m intrigued by the ideas of jQuery but am unsure about how deep it goes. I really wish there was OpenID support out of the box. I also haven’t seen any news about the Forums module. I love that its integrated with the Expression Engine platform and it made development of Dragon Avenue much easier. At the same time it seems like Forums may be Ellis Labs’ bastard stepchild that just doesn’t get the love it needs.

I’m really excited about Startupalooza. Looking forward to Kurt Deutscher’s demo the most.

Now if I could just get someone to nab me an Ellis Labs tshirt from SXSW.