Gail,
I may be doing something that would help. Have a look at my Summer of Code proposal found on this page http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~gbanaszk/code/soc07/index.htm. The suggested order of attack for the items in my proposal has UI Redesign at the top and Font Family Variants next. I am currently working on a bug (making <tref> work) but will be moving to the UI when that's done. Maybe I will get to the font family stuff before the end of the summer, but maybe not - even if I do not, I intend to work on it during school, too.
If you are flexible on this, is there any chance you could work on the CSS extension for font variants next, after the tref work? After all, UI will eventually be fixed by someone sooner or later anyway, but the CSS stuff needs more than casual understanding and determination... so I think it's better to focus on that while you are being paid for your work :)