Milestones are important for me to keep things in order. If there would only be deadline, I'd do things in wrong order, and the whole project would be messed up. Also milestones give out the general idea how the hingyfoo should work, and you don't rush to things, leaving other functionalities behind and not up-to-date.

Deadlines, in other words "The time you get it ready, or you are kicked out". They make you keep working, if they are set in near future and you have hella lots to do. If they would be no deadlines, ye would be slacking and widening the development time, just like Sony.

Prototype computer for me is my own computer, the one I think will be the mid-level at the user-group. However, for development, you do need better than you need to run one.