DEV STATUS

OK well, it looks like the backup issue may be a non-issue.  We're still not sure what caused it but it appears to be an isolated incident (as in, so far isolated to one particular user).

Progress marches on, I have all of the themes recompiled/updated for the new release.

I'm working on the full installer next, going to remove a few apps.  First up on the chopping block are 8sms and Textra.  If you prefer Textra or 8sms, you can always install them -- or any other 3rd-party messaging app -- from the Play Store.  

Next up are Google Camera, Google Cloud Print, Google Keep, Google Maps, Google News & Weather, Google Plus, and YouTube.  These are being removed in the interest of keeping the ZIP smaller as they are readily available on the Play Store and don't provide any absolutely essential functionality for the phone.

Finally we have Facebook, Light Manager, SMS Backup & Restore, Tomi File Manager, CyanogenMod's LockClock widget, and DashClock, all of which can be installed from the Play Store with the exception of CyanogenMod's LockClock.  LockClock, however, is really just a clone of cLock so if you like it that much, grab cLock.

SwiftKey and Trebuchet will also be removed from the upcoming full installer.  It's too time consuming for me to keep up with the changes to the Trebuchet codebase and the modifications needed to make it work properly on our phones, and Swiftkey is freely available on the Play Store.

While these changes may appear to limit your choices on the ROM, it really doesn't as all of these components, with the exception of Trebuchet, can be found on the Play Store and easily downloaded.  This saves you time and data downloading the entire ZIP file full of apps that you won't use and saves me from having to update them, resulting in a faster build time/upload time for the ROM.