PEAR utility 'preferred_state' handling

Greetings everyone, I have been wondering if it might be an improvement to alter the preferred_state variable a little bit for the PEAR utility. Right now, there is only 1 setting for preferred state, so if one wishes to try out a new package that doesn't have a "stable" release, there is no choice but to change preferred_state to 'devel' or 'beta'. This means that in the future, even packages which have a stable release would still be upgraded to the developer release. I see three possible solutions: 1. Don't set preferred_state to 'beta' or 'devel' install any beta packages, ever. 2. Set preferred state to 'beta' or 'devel', install the specific beta package, and then set preferred_state back to 'stable'. These both seem like poor solutions to the problem. 3. What if there were a second setting, like 'minimum_state' or the like, which would allow you to specify 'devel'. Then you could still have the preferred_state set to 'stable'. Then it would be possible to have the best of both worlds. I must acknowledge that it is possible that there is already a way to get this same effect, so if I have overlooked functionality which already exists, please let me know! Otherwise, please consider this idea and tell me what you think. Best Regards, Jay Taylor