Certainly, if I had a physics job already, this post would not exist; I would just be invisibly getting on with the project. Then there's the option of writing a paper. Last time around, the plan was to do something small but solid, like prove a minor conjecture. But I ended up taking the ambitious path, and now I have some ideas to develop which are very cool, but not yet validated (or invalidated). I might talk about them on a physics forum, but talking about them here would prove nothing, since the audience isn't qualified to judge them.

So yes, in terms of obtaining practical assistance, this post was a long shot. I had to actually run out of money before I was willing to sit down and write it. Afterwards I felt this immense relief at making a relatively uncompromising statement of my agenda. Hopefully a few other people got something from it as well.