I've seen this approach. I've also worked at places where the LOI/TDR approach was used: the first document ("Letter of Intent") gave a global outline of the activity, goals, deadlines, costs, manpower, etc. Only when this was approved, a second document ("Technical Design Report") was written discussing all the details. I personally believe that this approach makes much more sense, why waste time/money to work out details _before_ there is consensus that the activity should be persued in the first place.
Maybe we should adapt this kind of procedure ? At some time prior to making the plan LOIs are circulated to the list/members for support. When there is sufficient support for the proposal it will be included in the activity plan The result would be a RIPE NCC activity plan established trough comunity consensus rather than the RIPE NCC management proposed activity plan. -hph