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"...and I think it's good that they're trying to get a decent foundation in place before they go all over trying to market."

I'd argue they shot their load well before they even wrote a line of code.

With all due respect, they don't seem to be the most experienced engineers to solve the problem. Opening up to a larger community who is ready and willing to help would only be beneficial.

I see your point but one could ask is experience as important as vision and drive? If they were to open it up they would then be inexperienced engineers trying to learn to manage a community of engineers.

In my opinion one of the main advantages of Diaspora over alternatives is marketing and the hype around it.

From a pure engineering standpoint I think that products such as http://onesocialweb.org/ are a much better solution.