Is there any reason why they went x11 vs an asic resistant algo? And is there a chance coin algo may change before release or is it set as x11
Pretty hard to find any reason.
Someone could think for potential personal interest, with a proprietary X11 asic farm. Going for ASIC in 2017 it's not wise, give the market conditions.
This is on the first post of the ANN.
* PoW only algo X11 (with a review being made to change to something else after we fork off DASH code).