I wonder if the guys that use emacs will really want to use another version of it running on the JVM. I get this feeling that most of them despise the JVM, and the guys who generally use JVM are eclipse/netbeans guys.
Sure there will be some people that don't fit in this category. Though, it seems like the OP is trying to fix something that isn't broken. Anyways, it will be a great learning experience.
I'm one of the guys that uses Emacs, so this is purely anecdotal, but I'm really waiting for an Emacs with updated fundamentals. At this point I don't really care whether it is using Guile, Common Lisp or Clojure.
I do like this guy's goal of making Emacs 24 the target and shedding akk the baggage of the earlier versions.
You may be right, but those of us who currently use Emacs + SLIME for Clojure work might flock to such an editor. A subset of a subset of Emacs users, for sure, but not insignificant.
I don't think the relationship is that strong. Certainly there are people who feel that way, but there are also people who don't really care what the infrastructure is (C or Java) and just want a highly performant Emacs to work in.
I don't do any JDK-related work, but I'd try it and Clojure out just for fun. If things go well, I wouldn't hesitate to switch.
Sure there will be some people that don't fit in this category. Though, it seems like the OP is trying to fix something that isn't broken. Anyways, it will be a great learning experience.