I imagine it'd be hard-going for different reasons -- participation and management. I've been pushing for the TRT to put someone in charge who is more of a team manager than a developer. And, this sort of project needs someone with either the time or the skillset to put it all together.

We don't need a "Theme Component" team. We already have loads of great review team moderators who could review code.

I'm not going to speak to whether authors should be forced to use a particular component. That's up to the team. And, it's far too early to make any sort of decisions on that.

As for "extended versions," it wouldn't add any extra work on top of normal reviews. Even with a child component, the code should be far easier to review than a 100% custom-built component because the reviewer would be starting with a familiar base.

What I have in mind is making things simple to customize. For example, with the "pro/upsell" customizer component currently being worked on, the theme author merely has to plug in the data they want.

Anyway, the current goal is to get a couple of basic components out there. See how that goes and move on from there. Baby steps.