Hey Taconator
Great proposal.
It seems to me witnesses hold a lot of trust by users of the network. Therefore they are a big potential point of failure. I'm wondering how members Peerplays can hold trust in these witnesses. Perhaps they need to be more public? And in a verifiable way? I'm not sure what that would look like. But I have seen a couple of Witness proposals and as someone who hasn't been part of the Bitshares project other than a casual observer, I find myself wondering about these people who will be so integral to the project.
What's to stop a witness or a group of witnesses from acting maliciously? I guess it won't be in their interest because it will devalue the project, but there are other things that could happen that are unforseen. For example, something that politically divides the community such as has been seen in Bitcoin.

So I guess my suggestion would be to have more information about you as a person and a verifiable public profile.