"We are cryptographers and do this as a science project. Once the open code is out there, we will walk away from it and observe what the community does with it"
To me it seems that they are more interested in getting publications in scientific journals than actually establishing a new competitive Alt-coin.
I find the project very fascinating, so I hope I am wrong about this.
I can understand people not wanting to get into the arms race that is alt-coins. They release the tech; others do the dirty work of creating the coin that has most desired features. I doubt everyone will be happy with whichever hashing algorithm they choose.
I just hope they don't abandon it completely and stick around to fix any problems.