I work in software testing for business software and I agree that beta testing (especially in the early stages) is work. One thing people often forget in their promises to be good beta testers is that fresh eyes are more important than dull bleary eyes (from playing 20 hours straight). It's not only important to remember family and real life commitments but also that the game will be better off with three hours of quality testing effort verses 20 hours of shoddy effort.
Another big tip is to always take notes - being able to recreate a problem is invaluable. Remembering all the steps you took to get to the problem can be a nightmare without a good note taking system. One of my proudest moments was being able to crash a server on demand (over and over again) after executing 100+ steps, especially because nothing I did was out of the ordinary - it was the sequence that was messing stuff up (you should have seen the bug tracker entry - it was huge)
All that said would I like to get into Beta? You bet - want to know why? I'd get to play the game early - yes I'd have to work hard too but this game has me so hyped that the trade off would be worth it
