My guess on all this is that DAZ is having a marketting push to expand the user base for Bryce by giving away ver 5 for free - it may end up on magazine cover DVDs as well. The inexpensive upgrade offer for 5.5 is a seperate push to extend the membership of ArtZone.

I would expect differing upgrade price offers for registered owners of Bryce5 and Bryce5.5 to move to the new Bryce6. I would expect no upgrade offers for owners of earlier versions. Too bad for those registered owners of earlier versions of Bryce who are not in a position to learn about this short-time-frame give away of Bryce5...

Timing wise, I would hope that Bryce 6 is released some time before Christmas.  It would be really nice if Universal Binary versions of Bryce 6 and DAZStudio were available for Intel Macs soon thereafter as well.  :-)