2)  On the XMRig, yes, we plan on pulling in the latest changes as time permits.  But we are not using an extremely old version, its only about 60 days old now.  But yes, if we can draft in more devs into this project those things will be more timely.  I don't mind doing it occasionally, the non-mission-critical changes are just competing with new gospel features, you see (but of course, if its a security update we will do it right away for example).  Im sure you can understand that this week for instance Im trying to release an hourly prize in the new pool for RX miners who answer gospel quiz'es, etc.