There is the stock split too. It is actually a real challenge/expense to get the detailed dividend and split data required without having rounding errors (which compound over time) or violating someone's terms of service. It is as if we have the new technology and that it is better if we support companies that upgrade.
Yes, in principle bitAssets should allow for ALL possible corporate actions such as dividends, bonus issues, buybacks, takeovers and share splitting.
The impact of any of these should be a fair adjustment to asset value and obligation of shorts.
There are two ways I can think of to do this in the case of stocks:
i) Replicate the corporate actions for owners of bitAssets. That would involve making distributions from the collateral pool for dividends, splitting the number of bitAssets for stock splits etc. I think to work out all these adjustments, while possible, would be very difficult to implement.
ii) Define a bitAsset as representing a varying number of shares. Then the fair value of the bitAsset can be adjusted over time to reflect all of these events. For example, a dividend would result in an increase in the underlying number of shares represented, essentially assuming reinvestment. A stock split would simply represent a change to the number of underlying shares.
I prefer (ii), at least initially, because I think it is a lot easier to deal with. There are no additional mechanics required for implementation of bitAssets, apart from the flexibility to define fair value as a function of stock price that depends on an adjusted number of shares over time.
Your # 2 is the right idea. It would be the equivalent of a NAV calculation that a Mutal Fund / Actively manage fund would do at the end of the day. A feed producers responsbility will be to make these calculations everyday, report and submit. In the end the Spot Prices will be different between a MPA and a Stock, but the Fair Value will be nearly the same.