This project *absolutely* needs multiple full time developers. Mastercoin foundation needs to make that happen ASAP. At my business, I can hire 3 developers to work full time for me (as well as around 13 other assorted full time engineers) and we pull in less each year than the mastercoin foundation has sitting around. Not sure why this can't be done with Mastercoin as well. Run it like a business. Priority number 1.
I strongly agree. Let them work alongside the current developers, if need be.
I think that it would probably be a good idea to pick one implementation to be the reference implementation *eventually* (to avoid forks).