I don't think this only affects Skype for Mac Beta 2.6.0.72 but...

Skype seems to sometimes take AGES to show me my online contacts. vs. MSN - when you login: instantly shows whois online or not.

Skype, however seems to sometimes take up to even a few mins to show me everyone is online.
For example:

My Skype's been online for ages.. and my other contacts (mostly in Europe or USA) appeared online instantly. (MacBook Skype BETA 2.6.0.72), DSL 2MB connection (United Kingdom)
but...
I login onto my friends PC (LogMeIn) and open his Skype. (WinXP Skype 3.1.152 Canada high-speed cable) - So both of us are now online. BUT I can then wait for AGES (e.g. mins) before either of our Skype acknowledge that we're both online. However if I push a call thru (e.g he calls me even though "im not online" - THEN our Skypes connect and my Skype rings and he appears online.

OR today, his Skype had been online for a few hours, then I came on, about 8 of my Contacts were shown to be online immediately...
I logged into his pc... and noticed his Skype had been on for the last 4 hours...and waited...and he never came online..so i restarted both our Skypes..waited some more... tried to push a call thru him->me..no luck... (his Skype said I was offline)..then 5s later I try calling him..and it works... Ahhh
Any idea what's going on? Why is it so slow at seeing who is online or not (vs. MSN Messenger that's instant)??

Apparently this is a bug the developers are chasing, might be worth going to Jira and adding logs of what happened there.
Logging guide:
https://developer.skype.com/Support/LogFile

If you add logs then I would need them from both sides.

Ok, thanks. I have enabled logging on both machines. But my friend doesn't use Skype very often and the problem doesn't happen everytime either.

But we'll see...
Thanks.