There's precedent for well-communicating groups with a well-defined goal producing impressive results in the short term. Examples include the Manhattan project, the space race, and the more recent Polymath projects [1]. These redditors probably aren't the people to do it, but if the same attempt were made on comp.* or at google it might go somewhere.

http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Main_Pag...