I loved the ‘treasties of tims’ and really, really like the idea of the lot of hosts doing a little more in depth pieces.
I do agree with concerns folks have over the burden on everyone, BUT, and this may just be my terrible work brain going at it - this feels 100% fantastic for timed-exclusive patreon “bonus episode” type content once a month. Start with the author reading the paper, and then go into a recording of the group talking about the piece and the topic and just go wherever it goes. (NOTE do NOT have the person read their paper live in front of the class, that’d be awful). The person reading their piece can just do it before or after and get it to Esper - with enough time so Esper doesn’t need to crunch.
Having these be somewhat shorter eps that could be scheduled before or after mainline episode recordings doesn’t add a ton of work. Additionally if it starts as Patreon timed-exclusives. then it gives you something to release publicly whenever the group needs a skip week, and helps promote the patreon.
Anyways, definitely like/wanna hear more of this type stuff from the team. I love long shows with focused short discussion periods, but the occassional “and here’s what happens when we go feral on ONE topic for 30min” also sounds real real cool.