I decided to google parts of my questions earlier. Although I hate asking something publicly to later answer myself, I think I am a bit more clear after the info I found as well as the replies here.
First of all, something I forgot to clarify: I wouldn't expect or want Opensim to be a perfect replication of the SL server. On the contrary... Opensim has the ability to fix things Linden never will in their server software and add new features, which it should totally use. But IMO only for changes that are compatible with all viewers, and don't introduce new protocols for all sorts of software, which was the concern some of my questions started from. Part of that was clarified by this page: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Communication_Protocols It describes how communication with viewers works, and how I assume it plans to stay. The interface (which that page names "the Linden Lab viewer protocol") is one thing I wondering about, and if it's a fixed interface that doesn't need to be maintained for various viewers. Of course there's more than just the protocol, such as being limited to the prim and avatar shapes viewers can recognize. For this reason, I assume prim types like "cube", "sphere", "torus" will have to stay hard coded in Opensim and follow what Linden has. These sort of things are usually was I unclear about. I also found a pretty insightful article which deserves a read: http://arianeb.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/why-open-sim-is-the-future-metaverse-and-why-it-is-not-the-present/ It helps better understand Opensim's purpose as a system for 3D internet. It adds sense as to why non-SL viewers might have an use too, although I stick to my belief about them being unneeded and wasted energy to make (unless it's to enable SL on another platform, like Lumiya for Android).
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