The sony bean player has been discontinued after only having been out for six months. I don't know if it just wasn't selling or if it's about to be replaced with something better. I really thought that the bean was a great looking player (it'd be better if sony wasn't locked on to their stupid music format). Many are going to point to this as another product that the iPod has killed (and I'm sure that's a factor) but Sony has long had a reputation for just throwing anything they can dream up out there and seeing what sells. When you do that, you're bound to have products that don't move. Sony also seems to be in the process of evaluating it's product lines to simplify them and create some cohesion between them. As in the case of any corporate merger/restructure, the bean may have been a fine "employee" that simply didn't have a place in the new lineup.
Either way, if you are looking for a MP3 player and it doesn't need to be an iPod, you should be able to find plenty have right-priced options on your local electronic store's clearance shelves.
Apparently Flock has scrapped plans of making .6 a major beta release or they have decided that using numbers like .5.11 highlights the fact that these are betas. Either way, it has been a long time since a release of Flock was put out (outside of the hourly builds) and this new one is fantastic.