Given the recent <0.8 bug, when can we safely have larger block sizes? Given the &lt;0.8 bug and subsequent fork happened because of a particularly large block, does this mean that large blocks can not be used until the large majority of the community switches to 0.8?

Also why was the solution to push the 0.7 chain instead of 0.8?
I don't think anyone known exactly what the problem is, yet (note to future readers: the flaw was discovered just few moments ago).

I found this on the #bitcoin-dev IRC channel:


  sipa:  Diablo-D3: just saying that the breaking block had 1700
  transactions, but affected over 5000 block index entries


It's probably is a problem with "Berkeley DB" (0.8 use LevelDB and this is could be why 0.8 isn't affected).


Also why was the solution to push the 0.7 chain instead of 0.8?


The 0.7 chain is accepted by both 0.7 and 0.8 clients/miners. The 0.8 chain is only accepted by 0.8 clients/miners. So to avoid creating a (larger) fork, most 0.8 mining pools have downgraded to 0.7