i was surpised by the fact that simply running 'svn update' bumped me up to 7.1a -- from previous posts i had thought there was something extra that had to be done to get the beta, like create a new 71a directory or something
now i've got the beta i feel committed, and will commence chasing after the errors it spews from /usr/local/share/vim/vim71a/filetype.vim when i run it -- apparently the install created the 71a directory for me i am not asking any questions here, it's more like i'm warning those who may prefer to stay with a stable version