Okay, this is far beyond a typical "Hey guys, I have some ideas for a game!" post. Are you currently affiliated with any of the Plan Z projects?
(And no, I haven't read the entire thread yet, just the Mechanics post so far, but I'm going to over the course of today.)
I'm not affiliated with any on-going projects at the moment. What you read above is more of a "pie in the sky" dream of mine than an actual plea for help in making it.
For one thing the project as I envision it is massive. I would plan on at least 3 or 4 Public zones each as large as Paragon right out of the gate. Basically I'd be STARTING with a game the size of CoH, CoV and Praetoria. Add to that the Private Cities, skills system and all the other bells and whistles I would want to be bundled in the first release and you realize I won't be paying my developers so much as BRIBING them not to give in to exhaustion and hopelessness.
I am quite serious when I say it would take Powerball winnings to accomplish. I figure it would be at LEAST 6 years of solid work time before we'd even have something worthy of taking to beta testing. That's a long time with a lot of money going in and none coming back. But, I will also say this... in my case it would be a labor of love and I would gladly sacrifice lottery winnings just for the experience of TRYING to create this monstrosity.
While you may think what I've written above is complicated and involved, it's not even a small percentage of what I have in mind and what will occur to me during creation if I ever get the chance to actually do it.