Unity Free ??

I haven't seen anything saying that the beta is not accessible to those using Unity Free but it would seem like it would not work. Is that the case.

 

The beta is accessible to all. Free and Pro users.

 

Does it temporally(over the time of the beta) include the Pro features or is it the free version of 4.6

 

If you are a Pro user then you can take advantage of using features like render textures in the new UI if you are a free user, you cannot. You can only use the features that you get in free.

 

Ok so it cuts out the things it is meant to but will still work for most things or is stuff like rendering textures as important as I think it is.

 

if you are new to Unity I would suggest starting with 4.5 as the beta is bound to have lots of bugs that might taint your first experience.

If you really need the new GUI system right away, I would still suggest you try to work around it for a bit.
Using the sprite system (also in 4.5) you can easily create a OnMouseUpAsButton event on it. Slap it in the scene in view of the camera and you already have a button

 

I'd start with 4.3.7p2 before the rolled out the new API layers and further segregated functionality if you think you will publish anything within 6 months. It is much faster than 4.5 & higher.

But if you are just learning you may as well use Unity 4.6 beta as it's fast as Unity 4.5 and includes a lot of bug fixes Unity 4.5 release does not have. However, expect more bug fixes in the future for Unity uGUI and Unity 4.6 as well as the Unity 4.5 patch releases which are not recommended for production environments unless a bug you have encountered in you own work needs to be remedied.