http://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commits/master
http://github.com/monero-project/bitmonero/commits/development
The prices are high because we have diverged from the CryptoNote reference implementation ages ago. Also, it's important to understand what that means, and to understand that we did not "clone" Bytecoin (although TFT did use their code base initially), we effectively used the CryptoNote reference implementation (which, in and of itself, is also forked from Bytecoin). You'll notice that in both our original forked code, and the CryptoNote reference code, that the only developers credited are "the CryptoNote developers", not the "Bytecoin developers".
As mentioned above, Bytecoin is merely the reference implementation of CryptoNote. Just like we don't use Bitcoin's testnet for regular transactions, it's probably unwise to use CryptoNote's reference testbed (Bytecoin). I'm also excited to find out how you imagine they're going to get rid of the premine. Are they going to null out the blockchain and start from scratch?