2) We need to be thorough in the release process. It wastes time and
bandwidth for mirrors to download content from one master, only to have
the next cycle hit a different master that doesn't have the new content
(at which point the mirror deletes the content it had downloaded).

This is probably the most pressing issue. If somehow, all the masters can be synced at first, before releasing to the public, that would greatly reduce the gripes most mirror admins have.

3) Trying to pre-load a mirror from the ISOs is a manual process, it's
error-prone, and it's a pain in the butt. Mixed with the ping-pong
effect, it's not worth the time nor the trouble. Most mirrors won't get
the new content until they get it from rsync.

Yes, and that is why I am not very fond of the "torrents" idea. I would prefer to not have all the mirrors go through some manual work to update their mirrors. Once again, the "ping pong" is a remnant of "out of sync" masters, as described in #2 above.

As long as seeding a 95% torrent doesn't delay the synchronization of the
mirror network or delay the official release, I have no argument against
it. Don't delay the mirror network to aid the torrents.

In the matter of 5.6 versus 6.0, I'll echo sentiments already expressed.
There are 5.5 machines in production today. Those machines aren't getting
updates until 5.6 comes out. Nobody is depending on the 6.0 tree yet.
Don't delay 5.6 for 6.0.

I would agree on this one, that 5.6 is more relevant as of now, than 6.0.

Regards

HASSAN