It's impressive, to me at least, that for a language that is no longed being "enhanced" that such a core of dedicated users continue using it.
It's sad to see these faithful using a system based on DX7 which is now what, 5 years old or better?
B3D got DXTC not so long ago, and Tom for example has made a nice .DLL that enables you to use DX render-2-texture (not forgetting other contributions and add-ons by other ppl). DX7 is bit old, basic shaders would be a nice addition but that would make the language much more complex and might put some ppl off actually.
It's bit like PS2 thing - ppl are now showing the best possible results when the platform is ending it's life cycle because they now knowhow to squeeze everything out of it. How many truly awesome games have you seen made with BMAX?