Yeah even with 30 taper machines running mass production (Speedios, Robodrills) people are advised not to take really heavy cuts, but rather take faster, lighter ones. I know Frank Mari at Maritool routinely recommends people use 1/2 inch and smaller endmills with the shortest gauge length possible.
I don't consider the mechanical stuff on the SwissMak to be feature creep given how similar all the components are. For me, feature creep would be promising software or an "app" with the machine. The mechanical stuff is almost trivial with the right production machinery.
Team seems like the wrong word for now. So far there have been a handful of people involved. I'll list their occupations, but keep in mind since this project hasn't actually gotten funded yet, these people did it out of interest rather than hourly or salaried pay. No names here.
1) Funds guy. Generously donated 2,000 dollars after seeing the first prototype and having seen my prior work from 5 years before. This guy is/was also the head of the engineering department in a MAJOR government aerospace facility. Dude put a lot of stuff in orbit.
2) Business advisor. Expert in supply chain management, accelerated semiconductor/fab progress in the 90's. His experience is one of the primary reasons why I'm not outsourcing this stuff to China either.
3) EE department chairman at a fairly prestigious university.
4) Millwright/independent machine repair guy. This guy gave some legit advice and insight on the problems/solutions that manufacturers face in the machining industry. He has an aerospace grade shop in his own basement and he builds F1 cars as a hobby.
5) Two machinists, one an oldschool tool maker kind and the other a dude who worked in oil and gas making drill rig equipment.
6) Unpaid hype man/men, people who have seen this project from early on and have the personal interest to promote it and share it around.
7) Oskar and the guys developing ODrive. This is it's own company, I want to be clear about that part. But ODrive is the future of machines like this, and I'll be working closely with them.
8) Me. I'm the one designing and building everything so far.
9+) Future people as the business develops and grows.