should we replace the previous javascript based check in the admin
interface with this one as well?

This is a javascript based check, executed from the admin menu. If the
data directory is readable, a warning is displayed. Doing this check in
JavaScript makes sure we have a real client side test (opposed to the
check executed from ?do=check)

Question: should this be localized?

Template authors might need to adjust their CSS

this was broken by d0bdf765

If you subscribed to namespaces other than the root namespace using the
new develonly subscription feature you'll need to renew your
subscriptions.

When creating new pages, no date field is added in the edit form.

The new dget() method works accepts URL parameters as associative
array (like the post() method).