Comprehensive post! Just one addition: the controversy about security was not brought up by MIT the University proper but the so called Digital Currency Initiative which is part of the MIT media lab, which again is only loosely contented to MIT if not in name only. Additionally the DCI seem to have quite some conflict of interest issues left undisclosed.
Thank you for the clarification! I will try to look into the DCI conflict interest issues and make an article about what I uncover.
Excellent, looking forward to read it, the iota folks have stressed that in their replies already, but would be curious to see any independent sources.