they are excellent observations, but it seems pretty clear the team would be unable to implement them properly this late in the game, or worse unable to understand why they are a good idea.
Most of these observations are well-known to the Solidity devs. I know because I participate in many of the conversations around it. While it's not easy to evolve a language (the API surface is pretty wide compared to many other programs), Solidity is indeed changing and improving regularly, only limited by the available time of their contributors.
I may have enough funding to pay more that Brendan Eich is making right now. That does not mean that he will join my project. Good talent is scarce regardless of funding.
It depends what simplicity you mean. The Solidity compiler is very far from simple, so if you consider that part of the complexity incurred by using Solidity, then a reasonably small bytecode program might be much easier to audit. Consider that a typical smart contract is as simple as "if four out of these six addresses make the same proposal then execute it." You can basically write these things in hexadecimal without too much trouble.
Speaking seriously, there is an assembly for Ethereum called LLL. I would love to see code that performs exactly that example you mention and is easier to audit than the equivalent Solidity version.
