This is a response to a couple of "questions" you had in your review.
The long term plan is the game will run for about 8 in game years
year 1 - pav school
year 2-5 - Uni years
year 6-8 - post graduate, get a job, start a family years
As far as our staying power, people come and go all the time on the project. That is one of the good things about it being a community project done for free. Is it is unlikely to ever die, the bad thing is we are not that focused and things get done when someone has a good idea for it and not before. That being the bad, unlike most games where it is the same people and they get paid so they focus on getting certain things done.
But some of us have been around for awhile. I just hit the 7 year mark of working on GL, Kevin has been working on the game a year or two longer than I have. I am not sure who is 3rd honestly, but likely someone that has been around for 3-4 years.
So the good news is likely GL will never stop until something major happens, like the sun goes super nova and fries us all, then we will likely stop working on GL.