On #0, there was a group that did this in SV around 2000 called itself "Recession Camp" where they did free/cheap group activities. Would be cool to see something similar, but more persistent.

On #2, with the dotcom bust and further complications post-9/11, I spent my year without work in a house without a decent enough phone line for dialup and learning C# with a big fat book and the command line compiler. I wouldn't discount side projects, etc... but yeah, staying up on interview skills is important. I'm a bit old, with a family/life so what hits me in those scenarios is there's less accounting for "experienced" developers a lot of the time.