Ok I haven't bothered to read the entire thread, but why dont you just make a really basic version of this game then, have a "mod for it" including all the stuff you would want in this, then it would be all not for profit mod etc etc, everything made from scratch so there would be less to argue about, just like the jedi knights mod sort of thing, and a few other FF mods around, even if you just made your original game out of stick models, and changed all the characters names away, then "re edited everything" in a"mod".
You see where I'm coming from here.
Dunno if anyone had said this already coz I was too lazy to read the whole thread.