@kas1e
I don't care if an app needs their time to start up (even Odyssey has a splash screen, because it isn't instantly available).
It's not like we are talking minutes here...or our live depending on the start up time.
Give them apps their time to get everything ready, as long as it doesn't slow down anything while using the app, it's fine.
Saying that, i'm perfectly aware that ScummVM takes it's time if one closes a game, returns to the launcher and chooses to play another game...engine switching will make a new .so engine plugin load.
But to be perfectly honest, this is fine as well, as no one (i am aware of) is game jumping in ScummVM, and if there was one, he/she/it could always, like you wrote, grab the cross-compiled static build instead (which doesn´t have all the features of the local builds, i might add), if it bothers them so much.
I'll stick with shared objects in ScummVM, because i love the concept of having the engines as seperate files.
Once we (maybe) get a working debugger this will make debugging engine flaws a breeze (says the guy who knows nothing about coding)

...
plus, we shouldn't (again) start to limit stuff just for speed of development...we've been there and look how awesome Timberwolf came about /sarcasm off
Let's get the development environment ready and let the devs do what they imagine they want to do, if we limit "their" experience they will be out of the game faster than we could snap our fingers.