Actually, they are aware of the NITs, and apparently think they're not half-bad, just not the right size...at least that's how I read a lot of comments regarding the N8x0 on there, like the following (second two commenters are from crunchgear.com afaik):

Anyway, to be honest, I'm sceptical of open-source hardware design in general. Even if they gain enough community momentum now and keep that momentum long enough to actually produce a prototype, it will take them at least the better part of 2 years to come that far I'd assume. In that time, a lot of things can happen in the commercial market...