Yep, it happened again.
In 1999, AutoCAD 2000 was released and brought with a new DWG format. This format held for four years at least.
In 2003, AutoCAD 2004 was released, and brought with it a new DWG format.
In 2006, AutoCAD 2007 was released, and brought with it a new DWG format.
In 2009, AutoCAD 2010 is about to be released and is bringing with it... yep, you guessed it. Yet a newer DWG format.
This proves two things: 1) That Autodesk can't get the year right and keeps adding one. Okay, had to do that :-) But more importantly, 2) Is there really the need for the constatly changing format? That to say nothing of any AEC data or proxy objects, which change with every Autodesk release. They're fine products, but interoperability issues account for billions of dollars in lost time every year. Heck, I've bumped into such problems at each of the above releases save for AutoCAD 2010, but I predict sometime this year I'll add that one to the list too.
One of the things I heard about the V8 DGN format was that it was built with an incredible amount of redundancy, so that as new features need to be added, the format need not change. Older versions of MicroStation can simply ignore the new features. So, I'd like to thank Bentley, and specifically Barry, for designing a drawing format that can meet the changes of the times - and not change with the times.
But one important thing is still missing in dgn V8 format. V8 supports only tag names with 32char length, thats incomtabible to ACAD since V2000 Format!
can the latest Microstation version open 2010.dwg yet?
FWIW: I've been told that ADESK's versions are based on their Fiscal Years, which start in February...so they are in FY2010 now.