I've been curious about that too. It sounds like it isn't good enough to just replace main exe with the beta version despite the launch options pointing to the beta folder files. From his post I gather that you would also need to backup and replace the dll folder and the Expansion\dta folder with the ones in the beta folder. This would probably eliminate the need for the -beta= launch options as well. However, I'm not positive, so I've sent him a private message to confirm if that is viable. He doesn't visit the Steam forum too often though, so might take a few days to get a reply.