Ok, you are right, and now I understand your previous comment about distribution. Sorry about my previous answer (and its tone). My bad.

So you can set the protocol rules so that a user definied coin can be made techinically the same as the metacoin after the coin has been set up. So the problems are more practical: how the coins will be distributed (requires the trust to the issuer), and more importantly, it will take (too) long time for the markets to sort out the defacto asset to be used in bets.

But like I said earlier, I'm happy with 2c) (which I prefer over burning the specific metacoin) althoug I still think the (specific) metacoin (2b) would be better. Since I think there seems to a general agreement that we should get something soon (in order not to miss the opportunity), I really think you should proceed with your plan. What do you think should be done with the OP_RETURN issue?