I guess something I do is using bleeding edge frameworks and libraries to start projects if I think it'll give me an advantage. I figure that they'll stabilize (or I can help stabilize them) in time for the production release of what ever I'm working on.
I did that with ExtJS (starting way back when it was first announced as YUIExt). I haven't been entirely happy with the manner in which it has matured, as it has bloated into a somewhat intimidating Java Swing feeling creature (which is both good and bad) that means the most comfortable way to develop is without any HTML at all--everything is built in JavaScript and data comes in via JSON. But now that I'm about to finish up the project that uses it, it's turned out pretty awesome.
