Wouldn't you have the very same hypothetical problems with the developers of the alternative client?

Why would it be needed to fork or create a client asap? If there's a need and a will there will be a fork at the right time. At least every open-source project of some significance behaved like this in the past. Even a behemoth like OpenOffice was forked a mere month after Oracle announced a new strategy for OpenSolaris worried developers. And yes, it's not a typo, they acted on an OpenSolaris strategy change not an OpenOffice one, open-source developers are "naturally" wary of heavy-handed organizations (being corporations or foundations doesn't really matter...).

If you feel powerless, learn to code and to use git and hack the bitcoin client. Then if something wrong happens to the official client you'd be in a position to make a difference by forking the project yourself or help those like you who will fork it. If coding is out of the question, start putting coins in a "savings" address in case you need to pay someone to code for you.
Words on a forum won't matter, people who can and are willing to code and people helping them will. And from my point of view many are or will be in the Bitcoin Foundation...