Hello Gregory
Just to avoid any misunderstanding: I agree with pretty much all you said. There *are* massive organizational problems, and not getting a response to a request is very frustration - it has happened to me too. My comment you responded to was aimed at Stefan's "ultimatum" - which was a misunderstanding, as it turns out.
On the other hand, there are in fact technical issues. For instance, as far as I know, the OAI interface would have to be extended to be usable for full text replication (not sure about the details, but I vaguely remember Kate telling me about it). To Mediawiki developers, the primary goal is to support Wikipedia, not the toolserver. It's often annoying, but that is their priority. "Official" requests from the e.V. might help, though.
In any case: we should try to resolve the organizational problems, and work on ways to get around the technical issues. I know, it's frustrating to be stalled because "da man" is currently busy doing something else, but that's how it is with volunteer projects. Flying into a rage will not help. Taking load off the people we want to do things might.
Regards, Daniel