There seems to be a lot of P&P projects permanently in the planning phase. Since it is a huge engineering challenge, I think the best approach would be for a group to hack or back-engineer an existing one. I've been lurking the taobao thread, but I'm still not convinced it's a good platform to start from (or that it even works out of the box). I'm anxious see how it plays out.
I think the Madell DP2006-2 would be a good platform to start from. Structurally, it appears to use some off-the-shelf parts. Yes, it is over twice as much, but I think in this case it is worth it.
