Does Ubuntu put beta bulids out? I'd like to see this for myself.
Now, I'm not expert on the gritty-details of Linux, but you're saying that once they switch to Wayland, it will break compatibility with many things? Is there any specific reason why they want to change?
X11 applications will still run, there could be some issues but I doubt anything major. Afaik gnome will still be available - Wayland won't work for all devices and thus, I think, Ubuntu will need to support gnome too.
Ubuntu is thinking about the future, and searching for a single environment that will work for people on their desktops, notebooks and ultra portables and mobile phones. I'm not too sure it's such a bad thing that they have the balls to decide they are their own operating system, and their ambition is greater than tagging along with every other distro and never trying anything a little bit risky.
You may be able to get an
alpha (I don't know), but bear in mind that they still have almost 6 months to get this system working. In Ubuntu, 6 months is a long time.