I think one of the main advantages here over Phil Wood (other than 350$) is that if you're touring in remote areas and your freehub stops working, it's very easy to find a Shimano freehub and not so easy to find a Phil Wood one. I imagine a set-up for really remote areas like where I used to tour in Alaska where you've got, say a Surly Ogre with a 135mm snow-bike fork, one of these hubs in the back, and a double-disk hub in the front with a bolt on fixed gear cog, so that you can swap wheels if your freehub goes.

The weight on the prototype wasn't too bad, most of the weight is in the freehub if I remember correctly. I would imagine it's lighter than a Rohloff. I'm going to do finite element analysis to see where more weight can be shaved from the inside of the hub and the wall thicknesses.

The bearings are standard press-fit sealed cartridges on the non-drive side, and the drive side bearings are in the standard Shimano freehub.

The cassette on there is a 34 tooth.

I have seen and used hypercrackers, and I would think that there is an ease-of use advantage here; those tools are hard to use without causing damage.

Thanks for the feedback. I think one of the steps is definitely to talk to the bike manufacturers as well as Shimano. I noticed that plenty of frames come with extra spoke holders, but how many people actually tour with a crescent wrench and chain whip? If this hub came standard on the Trek 520 or Surly Long Haul Trucker, that would be huge. For now it's just a spare-time project though.