I know this has been hashed to death--over and over, in many forums, in many 
newsgroups, and in many lists.

But! :) Is there some kind of encouragement (money, postcards, chocolate) I 
can send to whoever is working on NetBSD's specialized half-kernel, 
half-userland threads?

Is it NathanW, the author of the following paper:

http://web.mit.edu/nathanw/www/usenix/freenix-sa/freenix-sa.html

Sincerely,
Marc