Just putting it out there, before you put the beta out, you should polish up the physics and the sprites, and possibly add some enemies. Other than that, everything is looking good so far! I don't like the way the whip is handled tho. I think it should work like PoR's Richter whip, because the current setup looks very annoying.
As for your questions/concerns:
Look up a couple of posts back, I have my entire work pipeline already laid out. (I'm nowhere near the whip physics yet or the character stuff for that matter.)
Right now the character is coded with just 1 HARD whip strike just so I can test things out with it (for example: breakables). There are a variety of crouching and standing strikes that have already been sprited and in engine just not implemented.
I do have a POR type strike in there.
As long as the gameplay stays quick so that you can switch from Gun and Whip modes with no issues I will be happy.
Right now I am on the 1st pass of the Environments. All of the stages should be in engine within the next couple of months or so if nothing else comes up.
Now, the main question BETA. Well, if you look at my pipeline I would say I will start thinking about that after Phase: 3 with a little bit of Phase 4 thrown in. It probably will be regulated to just 1 stage, but it will be in a solid playable state. Most likely it will be Helsing's Prologue.
The BETA will also be combined with Richter's Prologue and 2 player simultaneous will not be implemented yet.
Thanks for the other kind comments.