Hi swampdonkey
As you saw, the public beta is no longer available for download from Microsoft for the general public.
MSDN subscribers (developers) still have access to the beta, and to many other interim builds that are not made available to the public.
You don't have long to wait (theoretically) for the public launch of Vista, as I'd expect it will be available at some point between November of this year and February of next year.
The Microsoft Vista site has lots of info about it, plus screenshots & all -- if you'd like an in-depth look
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.aspx (the next-best thing to a beta test)
. . . Gary