I found something...

[Koen G]

Then there’s the fact that the barrier to entry is so low, while the barrier to real progress so high, which makes anyone who’s made any real progress on the VMs quite wary of freeloaders

This is a real problem, at least hypothetically. If some partial solution or bit of insight becomes commonly accepted, then all kinds of weirdos will do all kinds of weird things with it. 

Still, I firmly believe cooperation with respect for people's individual contributions is the way forward. I also believe that this forum, and connections like Lisa Fagin Davis, Ray Clemens and so on, provide a strong network of serious researchers who could step in when serious theft of groundbreaking work should occur.