Why havent Microsoft released IE 7? Because it is part of the OS. The only way they can do it would be via new versions of Windows or Service Packs. I dont agree with that. I think it should be separated from the OS for 2 reasons:
We need updates at least once a yearThere could be a great reduction in security issues by separating this further from the OS and stopping buffer overruns. Firefox has 0 Critical Security Alerts since it came out mostly because it runs on the XUL framework with abstracts from the OS.
Firefox http://secunia.com/product/4227/
http://secunia.com/product/11/ *NOT GOOD*