I've been thinking about this topic, off and on, at least since September 1997, when I joined the Extropians mailing list... What are the chances that we're still trying to figure this out 12 years later?

Not small. I read that list and similar forums in the early 90s before becoming an AGI relinquishmentarian till about 2 years ago. When coming back to the discussions, I was astonished how most of the topics on discussion were essentially the same ones I remembered from 15 years earlier.