In the meantime, I've found on past management projects that if everyone truely is losing interest during this critical point, have the modelers start working on some generic stuff (ie cats, dogs, cows, birds, etc.) Have the scripters start throwing together some mini-scripts (dynamic flames/lights, little particle effects, etc)

Stuff that can be done at any time, yet is standalone enough to be able to plug in to the overall code. Keeps people feeling like they really ARE moving forward.