Mark,
I posted this here under the assumption that what you said about the authors of eSpeak is correct. However, I wanted to know exactly what NVDA does to eSpeak before packaging it with a release, whether they are in charge of ASCII symbol translation and the like. I will post the question to the development group as Luke suggested. To your point about HTS voices being intelligible at speed, fair enough. I do still think eSpeak is a worthy project. I hope it won't raise too many eyebrows with your group if I end up working on both projects in some capacity.
Speaking of, in your initial message you wrote the email address as "inq@...", without the s. On your website, the s in "Louderpages" is included. I just wanted to make sure which is correct before dropping you a line.
Best,
Daniel