I support the decision to no include Ooo3 in ubuntu, and I don't say so lightly. My personal master plan to change the world, at the moment, hinges on the presenter view that only works in Ooo3. Because this has delayed my plans, not including Ooo3 in ubuntu is a 6 month delay in history itself!
But, I said I support the decision. This is because:
1. I've used the rc2, it ain't ready for new users. The stability issue is noticeable despite being 'very stable'. It has to work _better_ than Office to change the world. Otherwise the skeptics will willingly subject themselves to Office because they are used to it. Keep in mind the average M$ user believes a "stable" application, let alone a 'very stable' application, that is free ($0 _or_ opensource, they don't necessary know the difference) is less stable than any application that must be paid for. A lie to be sure,  but believed by many.
2. There are other applications and important issues surrounding ubuntu besides Ooo3. The Ooo3 project fell behind. This is a problem with Ooo3, not Canonical. Canonical is not a non-profit. They have a _duty_ to make money; says so in their cooperate charter. They don't have to and shouldn't expend extraordinary resources on one project more than any other, especially if said project is responsible for the delay. If a machine is in danger of not being fully assembled before it is switched on, and an _optional_ wheel is squeaking, why waste the time and grease? Canonical needs to keep it priorities strait. Do you realize that Canonical guarantees intellectual property issues for ubuntu? That means one small oversight in nearly 10000 projects could get a customer sued?; potentially, all their customers at once? This seemed to be in danger of happening with the Linux kernel at one time. How many lines of code are used for ubuntu? How many of those projects are involved in the minefield of reverse engineering? How many of those volunteers also happen to write proprietary code for a company as their day job? How many of those volunteers ask a fellow programmer for help and are given some code without asking where it came from? How many times has code been used that came from an unknown programmer offering unsolicited help to a publicly accessible tree? Even one such small lawsuit with a single customer could conceivably bankrupt Canonical. What then becomes of the the official support you're whining about?
3. If Ooo3 is really that important to you, use it. You can even get offical support for it, http://www.sun.com/service/serviceplans/software/index.jsp . Problem solved.

That being said. Perhaps its time for Canonical to be innovative and add official support for a new application for an existing release of an non-LTS at a later date (aka: 8.10.1). I don't like the idea of it, Canonical probably doesn't either. Many of their paying customers might not like Canonical changing the rules. And there in lies the key to changing the rules. Canonical would probably support 8.10.1 if people were willing to pay them. By the way, how many of the complainers here actually pay for support? And how many of you were personally committed your maximum effort to ensure that Ooo3 was done in time for 8.10?

ubuntu claims Microsoft Office 2007 format is included in Ooo 2.4.1. Considering that M$ spends an inordinate amount of time to ensure other applications cannot read their formats, I'd say this was quite a bonus no matter what version of Ooo supports. Why are you even using such a format? Is it because other people insist on using it? Haven't you told them Openoffice.org is a no-cost, no-risk alternative? Haven't told them is supported by a company if they *want* to pay for it for some reason? Haven't you given them your work using a ramdisk and Portable Openoffice.org so that it loads without any inconvenience at all, thus proving to them openoffice.org works before they have a chance to reject it sight-unseen? If you have not taken the time to do these things, then you must not love Ooo3 as much as you hate the people you let suffer under M$' power. 

For those of you that hate you neighbors, Canonical claims Microsoft Office 2007 works in Ooo 2.4.1 on ubuntu.