Ideally, I think, funding for developers (if necessary - though I don't think it necessarily should be) would come from foundation funds.  There are problems with relying on voluntary community donations and major issues with siphoning funds from MNs or miners in a non-voluntary manner.

The idea with Shadowcoin was not primarily to gain more devs - that we could do anyway.  It was consolidation, on several fronts.  It's easy to get impatient with waiting for that to happen organically, and I think maybe that's what was driving this idea.  It was exploratory at this point, for what it's worth.  The fact that it leaked says quite a bit.  Better that it happened now I suppose.