I can answer some of this. I am a newbie especially to cryptocurrency. I had a very easy time mining bcn despite little knowledge. however mining mro was very difficult at the beggnining.
when the cryptonote was discovered I was present during the conversations. TFT was a non communicating developer. TFT did not answer questions. random people coalaced around the thread and helped newcomers. As more people came, they relied more on the taco smooth ezi and others, and so by sympathy alone tft was marginalized. this was his own doing.

there is value in this coin and the coin was not hijacked. it was abondoned by tft. he had the forsight to bring this coin to the community but did it in a very selfish way. The current developers are now experieicing the same thing because of the closed source issue. ( I could not mine mro at the very beggining because the link for the download was messed up due to the # sign) I felt that it was deliberate so as to limit miners and benefit tft. (I felt, I have no idea wether this is fact). In the end, this is what is happening now. regarding current issues.

I firmly believe that noodle should not be part of development team. in this way he can develop his own optimized miner. good for him.

thanks.