Considering that 2.6 will be around the corner in a short while (ok - ya famous last words). I would say they are focusing on getting the 2.4.x offerings shored up, because they know that certain poeple have needs for some of the new drivers and features that the later versions of 2.4 offer, but don't want to jump whole hog into a new kernel.
The 2.6.0 kernel is round a lot of corners! About a year from now is the most recent estimate I heard (from a kernel guy at my LUG on Monday). SuSE will likely release 2 or 3 more versions before considering a 2.6.0. I just wonder if we'll see 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5, or whether version number pressure will force them to find an excuse to go to 9.0 later this year. Actually, I'm trying to think what big free software packages are approaching in the short term which might justify that. Not the kernel. Not KDE-4.0. GNOME is still trying to get a complete 2.x out, let alone a 3.0. GCC-3 is still stabilising. No significant glibc iteration is in the works that I know of. OpenOffice is a possibility...? -- "...our desktop is falling behind stability-wise and feature wise to KDE ...when I went to Mexico in December to the facility where we launched gnome, they had all switched to KDE3." - Miguel de Icaza, March 2003