The things you outlined are exactly what this does... ? It's a script that auto refunds and auto transfers.
These solutions can absolutely be off chain - which I also outlined in my post. I didn't want to setup a database for this experiment so I choose to store the data on chain. I even outlined that these should be stored in an external index for scalability.
In any case, these solutions are off-chain, and I think that mimicking a smart contract is an engineering overkill.
Overkill is fun to do some times :)
I prefaced this whole thing stating this was an experiment and that I'm not even running the script for anything. I'm looking to spur discussion on how people could use the blockchain to accomplish fund raising, and provide some example scripts that might get peoples brains thinking. Nothin more!