I wouldn't worry about a "doomsday device" in BOB. I've read everything that Oleg has said publicly for the past 8 years, and I have found him to be a practical, no nonsense kind of guy (as far as one can tell from just reading about a person) and the doomsday thing is impractical nonsense: it just don't fit.
I would also not sweat the computer specs to much either, these guy's write tight code. I would expect BOB to scale as well as the original IL2 did for older machines, and that is really, really well. If I had to guess, any mediocre gaming machine you can build for $1000 will run BOB just fine, albiet not with all the settings cranked up to the max.
On a lighter note I think digging up this thread is bloody hilarious! Can you believe we have been waiting this long?