What is up with all these breaking changes?

Yes, the configuration checker is broken. Here is a quote from the Release Notes comments/

colorlog is not part the core dependency, so that check_config script should not depend on it, I will submit a PR to fix it.

For now, you can change your installation script to pip3 install homeassistant colorlog to fix it temperately. Or if you like colorized log in your travis, you can keep it there.

from 0.89: Nissan Leaf, PlayStation 4, Point alarm control, Owlet baby monitor - #74 by awarecan

Alpha testers & devs are supposed to test first. The project reaches beta when it is “feature complete” Features are still being added. It was reported by somebody in that thread.