Just came on to voice my support for allot of your latest ideas matthewh3...
Way out of my league speaking up, only a few months into really putting allot of time in to figuring out a small fraction of this stuff, and then mostly my efforts have been in regard to Ixcoin and how to bring it's code base up to the bitcoin core 9.2 level and keep it current going forward as the block rewards hit zero within the next 2 months, now after 3+yrs, it will be out of newly mined coins, and survive on only transaction fees or die trying.
Thanks goes out to ahmed_bodi for an extremely quick code upgrade, over the course of only a few days here in Aug 2014, a new Ixcoin 9.2 core client was born, nearly complete source is up on github & can be found here:
https://github.com/IXCoin-Dev/IXCoinI not privy to whom he is, other than knowing he's involved with the Myriadcoin development and PolyMYR mining interests, the code (linked above) has to be tested on PolyMYR yet and undoubtedly will have some final AuxPoW tweaks before being finalized & released into the wild. Then also CEX.io (aka ghash.io multipool) is standing firm on their commitment to IXC, where it will have to also be thoroughly tested before implementation into their pools. We'll see....
My current opinion is that 'How' a developer implements AuxPoW, is at best a tricky proposition, one that takes allot of different parameters into consideration. To do it well with a Scrypt coin like zAnoncoin should be fairly straightforward, yet honestly I've not tried to take a close look at what will be required, there are only a very few implementations out, it sure does look like there is taking place an explosion of in code around this topic.
Considering all the various build tool requirements and various code base branches, it's not just a quick fix to drop into use for older coins with established blockchains and investors to consider, unless you've got the resources of a mining multipool at your finger tips for testing. Ixcoin was easy for him, it is bitcoin except for a few lines of code difference, and then the fact it has been merge-mined alongside the likes of NMC & DVC, for many years now, already proven code at the 3.x,6.x & 8.x code base levels. Its not my call, but Meeh was asking for opinions and implementing an Scrypt version of AuxPow would be a really great step towards strengthening zAnoncoin's position going forward IMO.....
The reason for all my discussion on ixc, is it points out how important that mining interests are satisfied, even for us zAnoncoin enthusiasts, many of us whom would probably rather not have to care about them. Protecting a coins network with lots of hash is a security feature we all want to be able to depend on and need to make this work, in a mutually beneficial way. As the price of zANC jumps up, mining it will be very profitable for them, lets make it easy and in so doing it will provide us with security and low transaction fee costs. At least that is obviously my 'hope'
An AuxPow Scrypt implementation right now should do the trick, let the merged-mined blocks appear in the zANC blockchain as proof of work. As to getting into multiple or different algorithms, I've yet to wrap my mind around why it is needed, undoubtedly tech changes will require it, but some algorithms will also have been found to fail or worse.
GR
I wished so much it was "a702d4f6530ec40e3bde6b14f24511b222cb8fb2ef88e721d26f35fea57d0d91" 
