Mike,
Can you not publically share your thoughts? We would love the hear them.
BTW, Have you seen the work done by the Microsoft team using a fork of Ardupilot? That may make it into Master at some point. Soaring/Gliding for Planes (the OP of that thread is behind the current soaring code I believe). That linked paper blew my mind a bit. I never realized there was so much behind thermalling.