Is Alpha a higher tier than beta?

I can't wait until it reaches the Beta tier as unfortunately I am not in the Alpha or Skip Ahead tiers. My friends who have tried it have all told me it works great.

Ring 4 is the lowest of the levels and gets the update just before general release. It goes from Alpha > Beta > Ring 3 > Ring 4. Ring 3 does has different tiers also (I am in the lower).

That is definitely odd behavior as the console should not reset on it's own. Is it possible someone else in the house reset it on you? Another possibility is if you had requested to leave the Xbox Insiders program and you were on a higher tier (ie.
Alpha). Your console would be reset to remove any updates that have not been publicly released

AFAIK, they are testing some fixes now for Game DVR 4K clips in the Alpha Skip Ahead and possibly Alpha Dashboard preview releases. You will have to wait until testing finishes with the Beta and Delta tiers and the updates are released into the next public
Dashboard release. If they follow past year releases, then the next public update may be in July or August 2020 (that's just my best guess at this time).

You will need to be a member of the Xbox Insiders to do this.

Unfortunately Avatars is only for Alpha and Alpha step ahead members (which is by invitation only).

If you are still interested though, you can build up your score to go through the different levels by providing feedback on questionnaires and bug reporting.

The more points you get the higher rank you can achieve to get higher placing in the program.

Once you have hit BETA level, give valid and constructive bug reporting and you could be picked for the Alpha or Alpha skip ahead group.

This will take a little time, so dont expect to be in Alpha within a couple of months, most people have been in Insiders for maybe 6-18 months before being picked for Alpha groups.