I do think they should have extended the beta for another full day due to the downtime, overload, and serious issues we had durng beta. I do agree that this is no longer a beta test, but the problem with MMOs, especially early on, is that they are unpredictable, and often times they can think they've got a problem hammered out, and it will pretend that it's gone for a while, only to later on pop right back up again leaving the programmers with mental BSOD. lol

The truth is, a 3 hour emergency maintenance is no big deal. You should go play WoW, they have 8-10 hour emergency maintenance normally along with an 8 hour maintenance EVERY SINGLE WEEK just about.

In the past I have noticed that SE does much better on that front, seemingly having the ability to implement changes and fix things much faster than Blizzard ever has. A 3 hour downtime isn't so bad compared to the much longer downtimes I'm used to from other games.

The thing to keep in mind is that an MMO is an unpredictable animal, they can think things are fixed only to have them pop back up again or to have new problems pop up from a freshly implemented fix. You should always expect downtime and issues on fresh release, after major patches, and anytime there is an expansion. It's just the nature of the beast. I can say SE handles it a lot better than some other companies and usually much faster.

The best thing to do is just go do something else for an hour or two and check back.