The two technical issues that concern me are the lack of...

The two technical issues that concern me are the lack of reporting from the production bores and the ability to build large scale ponds on the lake.

Regarding the CEO situation I see two issues. Firstly why does MR want to give up the day to day stuff that he has been doing for years and secondly has consideration been given to building the necessary team via other methods.
I think the chances of finding a CEO with a strong finance background and SOP executive experience is virtually nil. Considering you can count the number of SOP operations on one hand and the largest player is Chinese, we are not going to get anyone.
Getting an Aussie mining executive with a BCom is much easier but based on the success of most ASX mining juniors, the next CEO might not be the game changer we hope for. It's very easy to cruise along picking up $500-600K per year.
The other option is farming out the marketing and financing to third parties and MR staying put with a strengthened board of directors. Clearly packaging RWD would be easier with a completed FS.