Thank you for your reply. Typically (at least going back the past year or two), nightly builds has included the installers for both linux and windows distributions. That said, if that practice has changed, it might be useful to note that somewhere in the nightly builds, that's all.
I think having the installers in the nightly builds should be important for project development. Although I have built Alfresco piecemeal in the past, the installers certainly provide a much easier way to get a test bed up and running quickly. In fact, I have found that since Alfresco CE changed to a more complete installer package a while back (including all the necessary required dependencies), not only is it easier to build a test bed, but it helped eliminate quirks caused by variations otherwise made by custom installations. I found this to be particularly true in the linux build, as various distributions of linux, as well as different versions of each distribution, would often include versions of dependent software which worked less effectively than the versions included in the community installers.
I would imagine that eliminating problems/bugs in software as sophisticated as Alfresco must be easier when the vast majority of installations are built using a unified stack, as opposed to determining where problems arise as a result of various custom installs.
For the record, I love Alfresco, and the engineers and the community should all be commended on doing a wonderful job.
Just my two cents.