gathering Drupal users and usage statistics...a plea for help

We are compiling a historic overview of Drupal for a book project, the Definitive Guide to Drupal 7 by APress. As the main research monkey on the project, i (Kasey Qynn Dolin, a complete Drupal newbie) am trying to gather Drupal user and usage statistics data, which we promise we will make easily available to the community as we compile this data.

I will preface this request by stating that this is my first foray into the Drupal community, and the most overwhelming thing about it is the almost-crushing sensation that the work i am trying to accomplish has already been done, somewhere, by someone really really smart...if i could only find it.

I have reviewed the "Drupal Community Growth" and "Drupal.org Site Activity" stats posted by joshk (http://groups.drupal.org/node/1980) in 2006 Dec, which covers July 03-Dec 06, but not anything that tracks the number of users (by category) before [the data table attached contains only placeholders for 01-03] or past that date...has anyone collected this data already?

Also, Dries' download stats from 2006-2008 [http://buytaert.net/drupal-download-statistics-2008] - has this info been compiled anywhere for years previous, 2001-2005?

I have kind of a bad feeling about the answer, as each of the threads inspired by each yearly update terminate with a request for this very thing...not promising, but here's hoping someone will hand me a golden ticket. Or at least directions to the store where i could buy the candy bar with the golden ticket. Or maybe just point me toward the Chocolate Factory and turn me loose.

Thanks, folks!