Thanks for the comments, thoughtful as ever!
A couple of general points I’d like to make on the proposal.
I have come to have more doubts about the idea of creating a text that aligns with the text of Buddhaghosa. This continues the long Theravadin project of subsuming the suttas under Theravadin orthodoxy. It is another incremental step towards unfiying the text and commentary. I have no interest in seeing this. On the contrary, the exciting thing for me is to see what the text could have been before Theravada, and to do this the primary point of reference must be the Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan texts, as well as knowledge of Middle-Indic. But of course, there is no way a Theravadin donor would sponsor such a project.
There’s another issue here. To state it plainly: there’s no way in niraya that the commentaries were based on a unified edition. The Mahavihara had 5000 or more monks, they must have had stacks of different manuscripts, used by Buddhaghosa and his assistants. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that the commentaries are largely edited and translated from older commentaries, which must have relied on a variety of other manuscripts. These many different manuscripts must have had the same kinds of minor variations as we observe in manuscripts today.
Regarding your reservations about the actual editorial work, this was discussed over at Dhamma Wheel, where Gombrich was quoted as saying:
the greatest difficulty will probably be finding and keeping enough skilled editorial staff. At the moment there are only two scholars there qualified to take editorial decisions. I have recommended, privately, that they already start considering the problem of succession and training younger scholars who will be able to take over.
And finally, regarding what you said:
My proposal doesn’t preclude this. That’s because, as I have spelled out in more detail in a subsequent post, what I am proposing is essentially data entry. This is valuable in and of itself, and to my mind removes much or all of the need for a critical edition. However, if anyone wants to make a critical edition, it will then be much easier: pull the data and start editing. The groundwork is all laid, and you can focus on the actual “critical” part.