...But, if you don't subscribe to marketing newsletters or monitor the forums, how do you expect an announcement such as Start11 v2 release be able to reach you?
The same way it does for the vast majority of apps- a notification from the app at startup. I get a popup upgrade notification whenever I open Start11 settings now, so the capability is clearly something Start11 could do. Also, if the user has purchased software, then it's not necessarily marketing spam to send notifications of new releases by email. I get them all the time for software where I don't subscribe to marketing messages. Also, since I opted-in to beta builds, it's expected to receive notifications when new beta builds are available.