Well you <i>had</i> Sam Ruby.  But then burned him out...<p>If you can get Jim Hugunin involved then I'm sure you'll succeed.  Actually you should reach out to him in any case, because he has more direct understanding of experience in making Python work with VMs than anyone else out there.  Even if he isn't interested in putting out effort, I'm sure that any pointers he gives you will prove very helpful.