3ds max have matcaps? the only software that i know is zbrush, which has more evolved system for using matcaps.
28 is a bit much, but I wouldn’t say no to just naming it Blender 3.
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here is an old quote from the Chairman…the 3.0 version will be another big milestone so it makes sene to go 2.8x, 2.9x first.
Blender 3.0 projects
For all 2.x projects we will stick to the existing C core, Blender files and data structures (DNA) and Blender”s scene/object/data methods as much as possible. It has its limits though – it”s a design from mid 90ies that survived very well but never was predicted to work 20 years already.
During the next few years we can collect in our wiki the issues we have, and the wishlists and design ideas for tackling this topic.
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Well, yeah, but they could just as well call that next milestone Blender 4.
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if I’m right about my exponential acceleration theories …
the next blender milestone could be between blender 2.85 and 2.90
why i think this?
… because in blender 2.80 a great job of reorganization and simplification has been done … apart from the new techniques that we don’t know yet, and that probably will be experimented and implemented … the rest will attract more and more devs than in a way or in another they will do this job of reorganization and continuous polishing on small things … and I assume that this will last up to blender 2.85 when really every defect and incongruity will be cleaned up … and arrived at that point the desire to get back in the game with some new interesting intuition will be strong … it could also depend on what I know, from external technologies … virtual reality, interactive raytracing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, some technology that is not yet on the market … who knows …
imagine if holographic screens would come on the market, or even augmented reality glasses would become commonplace, and these reach incredible resolutions and efficiency … the interface would have to be completely rethought …
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I’m really happy with some of the changes going in during the last few weeks, as the devs finally seem to be into the polishing phase, and there are numerous changes going in that make Blender feel more coherent and complete. However, I still think there is a lot of work to do in order to reduce friction when using workflows with both old and new tools alike.
Although 2.80 has a ton of amazing new features over 2.79. and 2.81 looks set to continue that trend (lots of major patches, such as UDIM seem to be in the waiting for 2.81), I really hope that the team continues to work with the community to improve default workflows in Blender, especially when using the new active tools, and continues to polish the UI in small ways to fix the little things that slow users down, such as navigating between different tool and property UI panels, syncing viewport settings, splitting panels etc. and getting way more information into the viewport when using both active and default tools.
Anyway, I’m definitely looking forward to hearing what is planned for after 2.80 releases 
According to the VR evangelists (like those at Linden Labs, Google, and other companies), we’ll likely have the Matrix before holographic screens become commonplace. 
By then, you, living in the world, can jump into your Blender scene and push, pull, sculpt, shade, and paint polygons with ‘actual tools’. That is until the world becomes the property of the state and the new rulers go mad with power, manifesting in a program named Agent Smith.
That might be after Blender 3.0, the timetable for technological advances is always a bit too optimistic and often sees delays.
u’re asking them to jump about 20 points releases and break their versioning system, which sums up to be around 5-6 years of developement, that’s impossible my friend. 3.0 and 4.0 versions will come eventually but according to moore’s law that might double the time as more complexities are added to the code unless you double the core dev team.
honestly, more than virtual reality I’m more optimistic about augmented reality glasses …
the smartphone market is really saturated now …
the computing power will certainly continue to be miniaturized … sooner or later the companies have to reinvent a valid substitute for smartphones and PCs and at that point, honestly I would see it natural that blender with a new adapted interface take over …
the UI should be redesigned, but I believe that most of the features should just be adapted to the use of hands as gestures and little else ^ ___ ^
I’m not asking for anything. There’s no rule that says you have to have every point release between major versions. Blender 3.0 would simply reflect the magnitude of the changes.
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I think taking away everything… and making a really really nice python api with threaded c extensions at any bottle neck would be cool.
turn each icon into a object containing the code that runs it or a folder, so you could add them at will /select behaviors etc.
[sculpt folder] -> sculpt tools
[paint folder] -> paint tools
sculpt / paint tools could be little meshes you pick up in VR that really carve / paint like real tools.
meshes when opened up could be like a folder (logic / images / sounds etc)
non coders could crack open a tool and read the comments left in it and learn to make their own tools etc.
batch_raycast -> what to do if true -> what to do if false
Idont know but blender 3 it’s sound stupid naming, the 2.8 it’s much cooler name
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As long we don’t let it get up to Blender Studio Max 2.5… 
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https://developer.blender.org/rB828efef151752f8c1e1053347a3681a427690ae2
Damn. And the Blender menu made so much sense in the previous build too. Now it just holds all the stuff you’d expect in the Help menu in any other app…
One step forward, two steps back…
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That’s good news. This wasn’t the case in Blender 2.7. When sculpting, OpenGL lights were noticeably faster than matcaps, particularly when working with high-poly models.
You’ve mixed up my remark about matcaps and my remark about ‘Blender Studio Max’. 
Yes, as far as I know, 3ds Max has no matcaps.
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maybe the versioning system is internal and could shuffle things up for them ,unless we get a confirm answer from the devs for why they went with 2.80 instead of 3.0 then we will never know 
at this point there is a lot of documintation and toutorial ,and hype and even books about 2.80 . if it get changed it will confuse users who didn’t follow the progress and didn’t know about the change
Keeping consistency (even with development, versioning, growing, calendar…) is of great value.
Here, such a disruption would have a negative impact. Especially since Blender is slowly, but gradually entering global industrial & commercial zones. No sane being wants to create confusion among newly adopting users… becoming friends. 
Shifting concept… Imagine a prophecy: “Trinity, the Game changer.” *
* Since with 2.8 user is just unable to produce any kind of interactive content w/o 3rd party add-ons, tools… so user feels blessed by having Open Source GPL environment & tools with everything nodes (visual coding) being able to fully produce interactive digital content for the masses.
LOLWTF!? Well this saves me from duplicating images all the time (which is good), but I propose that “channel packed” mode be the default for all new images, as it behaves the way “straight” should to begin with.
Ironically now “Straight” and “Premultiplied” are both premultiplied with the odd exception they both still get un-premultiplied (using division) if the alpha socket is connected to anything (even an unused node in the case of eevee LOL). The only main difference between cycles and eevee is that premultiplied does something odd to the color in eevee… WTF?
I don’t get it…
EDIT: It should also be noted that “channel packed” instantly fails on cycles if you pack the texture in the blend file. It becomes premultiplied just like “straight” does… so if you want to pack textures in the blend you still need to duplicate them: one to use for color with alpha set to “None” and the other set to any of the other alpha modes to access the alpha channel.