OS3.9's biggest plus is it bundles tons of freeware off Aminet that Amigans use daily and take for granted.
I never noticed that when using OS3.9, what software do you mean?
Really, I cannot remember "tons of freeware" that I have installed together with OS3.9; most things are part of OS3.9 (new icon.library, workbench.library, the Dock, aml.library, etc) or not so free software (Genesis, cd file system) or it's ARexx, where people again are telling, it's doubtfull that it's really licenced for OS3.x.
And from the few usefull things in the contribution folder, that are *really* freeware, there surely exists already a newer version in Aminet, so you should better go and get some AMinet cds.
Don't get me wrong, MOS1.4 is much more complete than OS3.1 but you get my point.
I believe that MOS1.4 has more features then OS3.1 (even when still missing a few OS3.1 features/parts) but it seems it's far away from completing compatibility to the last official AmigaOS, that's the only reason I see for this.
And so, no, I do not really get your point, I'm afraid. I think, instead of buying OS3.9 cds, Genesi should work harder to get MOS more compatible with AmigaOS.
Ciao, Alfred