This sounds excellent. Regarding the alternative methods like Hive-Engine they are far less attractive as having an incorporated asset-exchange within Hive like with SMTs. The Hive-Token would become a gateway to 1000s of website-projects, creating a good deal of demand. Years into Steem-engine I still see it as a graveyard.
SMTs as they were planned and on a Testnet (supposedly) last year already, would have much less overhead for developers... hell, even I had a project in mind using SMTs for years now. If SMTs do not come to fruition I definitely will need to look around for other blockchain-solutions with higher traffic and name recognition.
Thanks for all the development work you are doing for this chain and I hope to hear soon about a positive decision regarding SMTs.