I remember InLeo reps talking about implementing stake weighted polling a while ago. Not sure where they are on that though!
I hope the various teams are talking.
Not super likely, I'd guess. There are a lot of little silos in Hive... natural human behaviour. I'd be happy to be proven very wrong though. And I am aware of several collab efforts, I just doubt it's the norm.
Given how small Hive is we can't afford too much incompatibility. It's going to save work to use what others have already designed. We shall see.