I see your points and I understand that the system as it exists now is something that has been developed and refined over time based on past experience.
Maybe I'm completely off base, I just think the bounty process, especially for large projects, in and of itself creates wasted effort. Let's use the III website as an example. Going through that bounty thread there are at least two submissions that look promising, super3 and itnom. Two talented web developers/web dev teams.
How is it not a waste of time and effort for them both to be working on the same thing? Only one site can get the bounty so the other is putting in all that effort for naught.
Maybe my solution won't work (I'm not that vested in it as it only just came to me this AM, so I'm not offended that you're trying to rip it apart

), but there must be a better way to leverage the talent that appears on these boards so that work isn't duplicated. The number one goal with my original suggestion was to maximize efficiency.