Schmidt taking a share of Blockstream doesn't surprise or bother me that much.  I'm sure he has some hope of guiding the company's trajectory, or at least keeping informed on it, but I'm also fairly confident that the important players (esp, Back, Maxwell and Wuille) are well aware of and wary of this, and I think it probable that they would bail if it became a problem.  In the mean time, the work made possible by the availability of resources is open-source to a reasonable degree and if they split what (if any) is not open would probably go along with them.

My confidence in Back-n-co is not infinite, but they are by far the best bet as far as I'm concerned. I feel this way because of their documented history and the quality of their work.  It would have been really interesting to know how Finney would have felt or acted wrt to Blockstream.  I do have points of dispute with at least Back and Maxwell but they are minor and I feel that the overall objective for Bitcoin is similar to what I would like to see happen.

I might add that I don't care much about the 'client' (reference or not.)  It's the protocol which is key as far as I'm concerned.  Ya, having some control over 'the reference client' at this point in Bitcoin's evolution does probably translate into having some significant input into what is practical to do at the protocol level, but it is not a significant concern to me.  To me it's just kind of an organic reality and less risky than the alternate.  I didn't feel that way earlier in Bitcoin's evolution, and I probably won't feel that way half a decade from now (if Bitcoin is still around) but that's my stance at this point.