thanks for the link but that just raised more concerns for me!
1. they say they only had 1 core developer and added another recently. this change they are doing is so huge that it shouldn't really be only 1 unknown person working on it.
2. the fork seems rushed. they even claim that PoW change is not yet completely finished. such hard forks need a lot of extensive testing.
3. the difficulty changes, same issue as 2!
4. there is still the biggest issue of the Premined coins!
i still don't change anything about my speculation in OP though.