Oh Jesus!
Now is this true?
Really?

That sounds very strange indeed. That they want to make sure test devices have the latest stable production firmware and not some internal, half-baked one that'll never make it beyond testing. How strange. Sure, who knows what sailors hacked on their own devices? Maybe they even installed Google services that must not be part of any Jolla distribution? But hey, how incredible bureaucratic of Jolla to make sure testers and reviewers get the same experience as paying customers. Hard to believ indeed.