Sure. Some sort of buffer is fine. So let's agree to keep the current vanilla server (PS: Undone, it restarted last week - though if you wanted Tekkit, that hasn't happened yet) until at least mid-June (which would be 3 months) and see where it goes. Already it's seen a greater variety of players, and more of them, than any time previously, which I'd count as a success.
PS: Jeb's change to light calculations was brilliant. It doubled the amount of blocks to calculate at once and yet I've noticed an improvement in server responsiveness (beyond what we gained by the switch to the beastly hardware).