I'm usually pretty hyped about new version too, but worst part for me are mods, which give this extra spice to vanilla. I cannot imagine, or enjoy game without familiar ships, factions, events and etc that grew on me already. And post update it can take unbelievable amounts of time for mods to update, while it can add up extra headache for authors, considering how extensive and how many new features new versions bring.
Judging by info so far, 0.9 must be the biggest one yet, so I'm gonna be stuck with 0.8 for the whole year or two still. Couple of mods I really-really like haven't been updated to 0.8 yet, so there goes the fun... It's all kinda super-exciting but still can be quite frustrating.
Seriously, whole case about SS is some kind of exercise (or rather torture) in patience.