Spending any time on investigating it at all before that time does not make obvious sense for my situation.
That's nonsense. If you're not going to be using the 3D module anyway (BlitzPlus has no 3D), why would the availability of a 3D module change your current situation? Well, if not at the moment, then when would be a better time?
2 years ago. If asked I would not put it in those terms, but one is a mature product and the other isn't yet.
BlitzPlus isn't a mature product, just an old one. I am looking to make a standard GUI app and maybe a few of them. I'd like it if they would run on all the hardware I have here at present.
If you're just looking to write a GUI app (ie. not something that requires OpenGL / DirectX) then BlitzMAX has lower minimum specs than BlitzPlus. BlitzMAX applications can run without DirectX installed, BlitzPlus cannot - also BlitzMAX has a vastly superior compiler that delivers smaller and faster binaries. And take it from someone who used to develop business applications in BlitzPlus - you want the additionall OO features that BlitzMAX offers. Sure BlitzPlus will make 2D games that run on anything, which is fine if they are free games
If they're just free games anyway, what difference does it make that less than 1% of your pretend customers won't be able to run it on an 8 year old computer?BlitzMAX works on my 4 year old TabletPC.