Our big invisible brain

[contracycle]

There is also the queston of what would be done with it if one did (I suppose we could give it to The Forge to freely distribute, or even to charge for if it was good enough).

I'd be up for that.  For one thing I think there's room for experimental compilations something like Pantheon, just to push the bounds and explore whats doable.  Something like the "best of the forge" proposal.  

A collaborative model would inded essentially be a "political" process, so I think there are a couple of concepts we can borrow.  The first would be that you discuss ideas up front and develop an explicit "constitution" document, for example to establish an explicit Weirdness factor, or the recurrent themes that proposals should address.  Secondly I would think that private committe-based things would be the appropriate model: even a bridge club might have a secretary and a treasurer, to organise events and to provide tea and biscuits.  Similarly I think explicit roles could be appointed -a rguably would have to be appointed - to keep a FAQ up to date, to keep the current ready-to-go rules organised, etc.

An organised design team like that may have the chance to produce something as coherent as a published game - after all they are themselves farmed out to various actual writers and producers.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility that it could be done online - after all I can pretty much do my job at home IRL, I don't see why I can't be an amateur game designer with the virtues of near-instant global communications.  This could potentially be a "virtual game studio" rather than just a freeform exercise.