I have noticed a few people still use 2.49 and this baffles me! I became a blender user back in the 2.49 days, and about a year in the 2.5 alpha’s became available and I switched over and haven’t looked back since! With the ease of addons, cycles, and the fact that 2.6 is the branch that is constantly being improved upon, I don’t see any reason to work with an outdated, unsupported branch of Blender.
Could anybody enlighten me? I’m really curious.
Some scripts only work with 2.49.
If you started a game in 2.49 it may not be worth the effort involved to finish it in 2.6+
You may be so familiar with 2.49 that you are more productive with it than 2.6+
I think too some rigs and drivers aren’t compatible between 2.49 and 2.5+ so if you have a complicated character rigged in the old version you might have to recreate it in the new version. It’s easier to just use 2.49 in that case.
But I feel like it’s worth it to get accustomed to the new program and get over that learning curve since 2.6+ is able to do so much more. That’s just me though.
I try to avoid using 2.49 as much as possible…but there are times when it has to be used (like when I need to import a ogre .mesh.xml files…but I then quickly take the import result into blender 2.6+) I try to avoid 2.49 as much as possible…it’s just so clunky and strange;)
2.49 is also way superior for handling vertex color - a feature which has pretty much been neglected/forgotten by recent builds.
Scripts. I actually use several versions of Blender depending on my needs for a specific project. 2.49 for MIDI synchronization, a test build of Bullet physics integration, and a build with Freestyle integration (still waiting for that to make it to the main release, actually).
Blender is one of those rare pieces of software where when you upgrade you don’t replace your existing version as much as you add an additional version.
I still fire up 2.49 just to use the sequence plugins in the VSE… There are quite a few quick and easy effects available in my plugins folder that are still damn near impossible to do in 2.6+
So much easier than 2.63. 2.63 has too many buttons. I use 2.49 only and I’m quite fine with it, I mostly use it for the game engine. It’s also way easier to use the scripts than the newer versions.
It also has better imports than the newer versions.
Wondered when you’d spot this thread. 
I never got to grips with 2.49’s interface. I might actually have a go now I’m more familiar with modelling. Being able to access scripts unavailable in 2.6X could be useful.
Hehehe… 
if they would build a 2.49b skin for the 2.60 series i would switch. but at the moment i use both.
You guys are crazy. 2.5+ has a much much better interface, more logically designed. You old fossils need to get into the 90’s!
All kidding aside, there are a bunch of plugins that haven’t been updated since the 2.49 days, so it’s useful to keep around for that – mostly, like has been stated, for using scripts that import bizarre mesh formats that haven’t been ported over to 2.63 yet. The great thing about Blender is that you can run multiple versions without too many problems.
Yes indeed! I’d switch too!
90s? err, maybe try 80s first. 
Yes I agree, I absolutely love windows 95 and my 2mbs of RAM.