(This was originally part of a reply to Dana, but it got too long.)

Let's open the windows and take a good look around at the real world.

To begin with, Eo has a fatal flaw. Not phonology, orthography, grammar or 
lexicon. And Sasxsek has it too. Every auxlang on this list does--though some 
are less affected. The flaw is that they are artificial. Eo is a fake language. 
Everyone Knows This. I've talked to people about it, and it's usually a fake 
language used by some fanatics who can't really understand each other in it, 
so at their conventions (kongresoj) they have to use English instead. I have 
tried to persuade these people otherwise. I might as well try to get a Nazi to 
kiss a Jew.

This is the great problem, and until it's solved, NOTHING else matters. All your 
dinking around with grammar and vocabulary is as relevant as hitting yourself 
in the face with a pie--and considerably less amusing. All that will happen is 
that people you approach will say, "Wow! It's a *multicultural* fake language. 
Too bad it's a fake."

How can the prejudice against artificial languages be overcome? There are two 
possibilities:

First, starpower. Get a celebrity or a series to back an auxlang, and it will gain 
popularity. They will discover that it's workable, and it should prosper. If 
Klingon were even as learnable as Volapuk, it would now rival Eo. No such luck. 
But what if the guys on Lost discovered a tribe that spoke LFN? It's easy to 
learn and use, for the most part, and the fans who tried it could take it to the 
world through the Internet. They would be a viable demographic in very short 
order. But doing all this is tricky and requires luck.

Second, leverage what you have. This means starting out with the evil 
euroclones, because nothing else will work, short of nuclear-based extortion. 
This is because you almost have to start with an at-sight language. Why? 
Remember what I said about popular views of Esperanto? "It doesn't work." 
This is related to everyone's fear of learning another language: I could never 
do that! Now, if you can't possibly learn a *real* language, you certainly 
couldn't manage a *fake* one. That's why at-sight is the easiest way--the 
thin end of the wedge. And it practically requires a "euroclone."

You see, if someone says Interlingua or Occidental is a fake language, you can 
show him a sample text. Okay, it's a fake language he can more or less 
understand. Yes, you say, but with a little study, he could understand it and 
use it actively, and he could reach others that way. If he can understand it at 
first sight, a lot of other people could too. Wouldn't that be cool? ("Coolness" 
is vitally important.) He could even communicate with people who don't know 
English! Why not try it online?

There are basically three responses:

1. "Well, that's interesting, but I have other things to do." Fair enough--and 
this will be a very common answer, no matter how diverse your design is. But 
at least you've demonstrated that an auxlang can work. With any luck, he has 
moved from cynicism or skeptism to mere apathy. If so, further movement is 
possible. Later on, he may be more open to the idea.

2. "Hey, that's cool! I'll try it!" And he does--for a few weeks or a month. Then 
a new video game comes out, and he forgets about it. Again, very common. 
BUt if the language is all that easy, even a week or two will leave quite an 
impression. He may come back to it later, and his retention will probably 
surprise him. This is fairly positive.

3. "Hey, great! I could write novels, poetry, or even really cool comics in this 
language!" And he actually sticks with it and becomes a useful member of the 
community. He could even be a "Raumist" for the new language, but he will still 
contribute in some ways.

(In case you wonder, I'm not saying at-sight projects are the only way; they 
are just the easy way. They do have problems later on, though a moderate at-
sight such as LFN could escape them. The point here is simply to overcome 
prejudice--and that is most easily done with an at-sight language. After the 
prejudice has been brought down, everything's open--and some of the natural 
advantages of schematic systems would become obvious.)

This is why I'm totally serious about trying to get Interlingua accepted as a 
working language by the EU. It could succeed in such a setting, and it would 
make conauxlangs respectable. It's also why the best thing Eists could do to 
hasten the Finvenko (or something like it) would be to support Interlingua now 
in a limited role. It has no chance of spreading to Asia, for the most part, and 
it would open the door for Eo by making auxlangs respectable. After all, if 
Interlingua ceases to be a fake language, Eo is even more credible. And other 
projects would also prosper.

At that point Occidentalists could claim to have an easier language than Ia, Eo 
could claim that and a large body of literature (etc.), and you could amaze the 
world with how multicultural and neutral Sasxsek is. But until the prejudice is 
overcome, whether through starpower, a practical example, or some other 
means, every project is largely dead in the water. We msut solve this problem, 
even if it means cooperating.

Steve