So I asked Redrumloa about this, and if I remember correctly, his exact quote was "the beta drivers are not yet ready for public consumption."
This is still the case. I was very optimistic at the time that final 8139 drivers could be released, and quickly. I have unreleased beta drivers that work much better than the public ones. Unfortunately the OpenPCI author has since ceased all Amiga related devlopment, due to a new marraige and child, and has gone quiet. The beta drivers I have, while much better, still are buggy. I have approached just about every devloper left in this market trying to find one willing to do drivers, under contract, for profit. Not a single developer is interested, regardless of price. I have even offered bounties for simply finishing existing drivers, no interest.
Furthermore I couldn't even get people to do driver betatesting. A mailing list was set up, some free and discounted boards were given out, drivers were made available for testing, and not a single feedback was received. The 2 developers who were waiting for feedback got tired of waiting. One of which has since quite, the other has gone quiet and also probably gave up. I myself was the only one doing any testing whatsoever.
The current price of the Prometheus reflects it's status. With the exception of upcomming Catweasel MK4, there are no future new driver guarantees. If anyone knows a hungry driver developer willing and capable let me know.
