(and probably also code work, since the guy who's supposed to be helping hasn't gotten back to me in 3 weeks)
I handed it to Novak for firmware but he never got around to it and then he left for a freakin' sweet rocket scientist job
I understand your problems, but let us help you.
Maybe somebody who's reading those threads has some experience working, or desire to work, ith those microcontrollers.
Originally, you had in mind megaAVR with assembly-level coding.
Later, you've mentioned some NXP part (presumably programmable in C).
Let us know what exact part numbers you have in mind for your design. Post somewhere or link to the code you may already have on your mind. People here may be able to help you. It doesn't cost you much. We (all of us, readers) may be able to constructively help you.
I, personally, am not making any promises to deliver on some deadline. I'm mostly curious. But I do have significant experience and I'm certainly able to help with various design decisions.
But in order for us to help you, we have to know what microcontroller choices you've considered and what are your preferred choices for the applicable toolchain.