Releasing more often with less stability won't help the market, especially if the people that end up with the Linux are new users. They're going to think that Linux sucks and go back to MS. I dunno. IMHO, I don't think it's a good strategy.
It seems their decisions are profit and marketing driven more than practical or logical.

I have heard a couple different rumors regarding the quick release of RH9. One was that they wanted the version number to match or exceed the competition. If SuSE has a a 10.0 or Mandrake has an 11.0 then Redhat would be perceived as being behind by having 8.0 even if 8.0 was released after the other two.

I also think that Microsoft does a lot of the same. Do they make upgrades to the kernel itself and fundamentally alter the operating system with each release? Sometimes. But it seems that they could just release updates, patches, hotfixes and service packs to keep the operating system current, stable and secure without renaming and repackaging it and displacing many of their customers.

But, when the gas runs out of the marketing campaign for the previous version, what else is left to do but rename and repackage it so you have something new to blow your horn about?

I have to agree that its not a good strategy and seems counter to the goal of marketing. Many companies are still using Windows NT because they were waiting for Windows 2000 to be proven and stable before investing in it. Before they could get there, they came out with XP and now .NET / 2003. Most companies don't like to bet the farm on new, unproven technology and Microsoft shoots themselves in the foot by coming out with new versions faster than the old one can establish itself.