Splitting is a way of trying to get it stable. Other methods I know of to contain everyone around here is to make the directory read only and tunnel all patches through one person that says no a lot. It has been the only way to divert people for the last 3 major releases.
There hasn't been a day for weeks when no one added features or fiddled around with code that is not technicly broken. Which is understandable because everyone want to get things in before release because we so seldom have releases. Which adds lots of work that contributes to having releases so seldom.