I have a new 6month project starting in the new year that will be deployed to Azure.

What features will be in v3 that will help?

Should I start with v2.6, or wait for a v3 beta?

v.2.6 is working on Azure Please check the following blog post: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2009/09/05/llblgen-pro-and-sql-azure.aspx

Also you may just seacrh the forums for: Azure And you will find some useful threads there.