Wow. That's an exhaustive discussion. +1
The most burning questions: (1) for a miner based in the U.S., does the BTC miner realize a short-term gain the moment a bitcoin is awarded? or can they defer all gains until perhaps a year+ after mining and realize the whole sale as a long-term gain? (2) If short-term gains are due upon mining award, and the value at the time of award is US$1000/BTC, and the tax due on short-term gain would be US$300, and then BTC crashes to be worth $10/BTC before the miner sells the coin and never recovers, is the miner left holding the bag on the $300 short-term tax bill? (Similar things happened to stock option exercisers in the dot-com bust, people who held their exercised stock.) (3) Does tax treatment differ for solo- and pool-mining? I can see pool-mining being treated as offering a service to the pool, and any awards are immediately taxable as revenue, whereas in solo-mining perhaps one could argue the award isn't realized until one actually sells the BTC.
2) If the value of BC crashes between the time earned and the time the tax is paid....then yes, you're SOL and still owe taxes on the value of the BC when received. However, usually there is a corresponding deduction to help alleviate that.
3) Pool mining almost certainly is taxed differently, since it is more akin to investment income than to compensation income.