I am a Permanent Member (or Community Ambassador) of the Drupal Association.Dries has thrown down the gauntlet:
the only way to [...] experience the true benefits, is to take testing to the extreme. There is no middle ground. If we want to be serious about testing, we need to enforce, not just encourage, testing in the Drupal 7 development cycle and beyond.
I couldn't agree more and am thrilled that Drupal is moving so strongly in the direction of mandatory and automated testing. The problem at the moment, however, is that too few people know how to test and fewer yet know what tools to use when using Drupal. If you are one of the legions of developers who have often though "oh, that's something I intend to learn sometime", the time has arrived. Here are some resources that should help you get started.