Your edit could quite possibly remove the need for me to finish mine :P With that said, I have been working off and on at an edit called "The Phantom Hour" which cuts out the entire Gungan sub plot except for Jar Jar. Some issues remain, but I think you could take some of the concepts and narrative that I came up with and add your tweaks and concepts and be very close to what you're trying to achieve. I have a decent/slightly rough workprint available, if you're interested in watching it. It's less than an hour long. And I've found that Jar Jar, while being a pain, can ultimately be tamed down to the point that he's not as horrible... and then you just ditch him on Coruscant. :)