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If someone were to release an open source reference implementation with s thorough test suite, would that be able to work around the lack of a spec?

And beyond that, are there any loopholes to workaround the need to pay for a spec?

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NIST does this on the regular with ISO standards that they're involved with. That said, having a reference implementation with a test suite doesn't work around anything. Someone needs to have access to the standard to create the reference implementation. Not really a "loophole" but those on the committee that develops a given standard typically have free access to draft versions, often even the final version ratified by ISO.

People on a commitee have free access to the final versions of anything that might be helpful to develop future standards.

I'm guessing from your username which standards you are interested in.

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