Re: How to upgrade?
You can reinstall the old bp plugins and database backup if you choose to. Daily backups should be a part of life for you. Eat breakfast, backup the site. Yes, upgrade to RC-1. Support will be impossible otherwise. That will be the first thing anybody asks/tells you. If you do run into problems nobody is going to pay much attention to you because we are not going to revert to a previous version just to try and duplicate your problem. 
All versions of software have problems. RC-1 is the most recent and stable version of bp.
