I don't know how a fork could benefit the coin? You'd only need it for major rule changes for which I don't see a reason atm.
It might be nice to somehow speed up the diff adjustment on its way down. But then Mr 10GH simply comes back faster I guess...
So the only protection against him doing diff pump&dump is to get the coin more popular so his 10GH don't have much impact anymore.
And for that we need exchanges because the initial value for every coin is in speculation / trading based on its innovations and potential for the future.
Agreed, but if it at some point for some reason needs to be forked diff retargeting should be on the todo list.
Open source amd miner would help a lot, there's plenty of hashing power looking for a new home right now.
That's true: all my attempts to have claymore release his miner have failed. There is a bounty, though. I guess that, if we manage to enter a bigger exchange, the interest will raise and a miner developer will likely come to get the bounty.