Interesting project idea. I hope it comes to fruition (I think it will if you guys are patient and dilligent). One person worth recruiting would be Gary Kerr as he took some excellent documentation of this ship while it was disassembled to get some good samples of the colors and hints as to how various aspects were constructed. That way he could provide some possible keys as to how the ship looked when Ed's team did their disassembly.
Now the one question I inevitably have to ask is if the plan is to still do it as a restoration (perhaps with some augmentation for structural support) or are there plans to make it more than it was? I think the big rub people have with Ed's work is it was sort of made more than it was, hence the augmented weathering appearance. When done, this is still going to be like the studio model right? With the unfinished left side and all? Reason being is there might be calls to want to "finish" the model (when it doesn't need finishing).
The biggest challenge I ultimately see is going to be the engines. Even if the struts are modified to keep them from sagging right away, the engines themselves will likely still need to be braced while on display (except for short periods) as ultimately, I don't believe any of the original designers and builders imagined those warp engines were going to be installed for decades at a time. Finding a structural engineer with knowledge of the woods and adhesives used at the time would be a smart thing to do as well (heck, the Smithsonian and plenty of other instututions do that to make sure their restoration work is not only good, but that what they do ultimately doesn't cause problems decades down the road, such as with corrosion, wood rot, environmental factors etc...).
This would be a very cool project to take part in. Granted I think you have elements of a good workforce to take part. I would love to be able to document the work in the process if I lived in California (which I don't, but I can still dream).