Hi Jason
J; "Perhaps nature is just very very strange"
No, I've found Occam, and Feynman, spot on, but reality may always seem strange at first when we've had it so wrong for so long.
I find it interesting to read such a varied take on the model. But you do drif off base; J;"The speed of light is only relative to the particle or wave that emitted it".
That's false. 'c' is constant irrespective of speed of emitter. The relationship between wave (signal) speed and frequency is inverse and constant. It then follows that for frequency to change between frames (red or blue shift) the speed must have changed between frames/fields - which it does to maintain 'c' locally across frames in relative motion.
This is logically certain. It's also logically certain that you'll have to read it again more slowly a few times to really understand it because it's too simple.
J;"Probabilities are really just "maybies", dice..." Probablities really may be quite simple Jason. There is a variability range in a wave. Imagine you're floating in the ocean, at any one moment your position may be anywhere on any wave, both your position and the likelihood of water being over your head will depend on where you are and whether youre going up or down. It's only uncertain as we don't know where the peaks are. Nothing could be simpler!
J;"The front end of the jet, traveling at 7c, is also emitting a wavefront at one more c." Technically correct, but within a nanosecond it must be slowed to the local 'c' by frequency modulation by the dense oscillator shock propagated.
J;"So particles of matter basically broadcast to each other using virtual photons perhaps."
Hmmm. A better way to percieve it is in terms of Maxwells magnetic fields. It's oft ignored, but Maxwells equations are local, stay with the core mass, and are at any scale within each other. The field of an electron in a collider moves within the magnets fields, which is within the pipes filed, which is within the earths field, which is within the suns (solar systems)field (heliosphere) etc etc. And all move relative to each other - exactly as Einstein said; "..'space' is actually infinately many 'spaces in relative motion". He just didn't quite manage the leap from sets of co-ordinates to discrete fields.
You could think of it as just another property of Maxwells EM field. The new postulate to complete SR and rid ourselves of all the parasitic paradoxical nonsense is; " The speed of EM waves ('c') is locally constant within all EM fields in relative motion."
And sorry Jason. It won't help you build a practical hyperdrive, and even a hyperhighway would still be very dicey, as you noticed. But it would probably be a little more useful than that if enough of humankind ever became intelligent enough to recognise it.
Peter