The community would be in an uproar if such a sale happened. Reddit's only monetization schemes right now are 1) reddit gold 2) ads and 3) the gift shop. These are things that the community can completely boycott. Any sane person would know not to buy out something like reddit.
Reddit is really poorly managed. If Google bought it and gave it an overhaul I'm sure it would be welcome over the current administration. Plus, the "non-vocal users" simply don't care.
I would start with rewarding administrators with payment (akin to youtube, somewhat proportionally to views -- this creates a strong incentive towards fidelity), revamp post priority algorithms, and add some basic functionality that you need to install an add on (!), RES, to get (what other top 100 website needs this?).
