Progress so far seems to be great in my opinion (with the current tools available). The game is polished enough to get a closed build out to see some of the kinks that would otherwise be left unnoticed. I definitely am striving to make this patch "stand out" among the others, so I guess it is "official" in ambition.
Right now I am the sole "coder" of this project, and while I taught Ripple how to edit files, as of now, you are correct that he gives feedback (and does some independent research of his own to recommend changes) and I code them or bench them for a later time (for the moment: this is if they concern themselves with "top tier" characters; basically anyone Peach or above).
I definitely would love to have someone with your knowledge to help us out on the project, but I wonder if we will see eye-to-eye on some of the changes? In your Bowser example, I surmised that Bowser's jump and empty landing physics were kept the same and other areas were compensated, while in SDR, Bowser was leveled to Ganondorf while still maintaining his better run speed and wavedash friction.
I would definitely appreciate another coder with whom to work, especially someone who knows how to research the B-move floating points (like you!) as that is probably the biggest untapped asset available to Melee hacking as-is.
Let me know what you think.