Two: Why would we want a engine with Maya or 3DStudioMax interoperability? Most indie developers would not be able to afford Autodesk products because they are so pricey. The only people I know who use Autodesk in the gaming industry are those who make AAA games. If you want to contact the least common denominator, then you need to make some changes to the way you do things.
I third Haxe. From what I've read and done in it, it is a extremely nice language to work within. I just wish it had a bit more tutorials for people to learn from.
It's suggested that the most optimal profile are people under 35, but I don't think people over that age are automatically disqualified. It's just that the majority profile they are looking for contains males who are under 35.
Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects.
I like the level of customization it gives you, plus I ( this may be subjective) find it way more stable then Arch. I love the Portage package manager, and the low memory footprint (besides compiling).
From my experience, just trying to combine technology and teaching isn't good enough. We need something better than what we have now.