Mosaic: Relation fields in mosaic layouts

I'm having some serious usability issues with Mosaic, and at this point can't see how I'd ever recommend it to anybody.
I'd love to contribute to the Mosaic user story, and really appreciate David's recent comparisons to other widely used site/layout builders... There's a lot there to emulate.

Ran updates to be able to test v2.x on a test site and still problems.*
Can't add links in a text field.
Select text. Hit 'link' icon in TinyMCE bar, panel opens, insert URL in external link field. Hit Apply. Sometimes three times before the panel goes away. Nothing changes. No link.
Indeed, I can't even do it manually, since the <> tab is not in the MCE bar (is there in v2 but still...)
So I don't mean to hijack your topic David, but does anybody have an idea why this is happening? Pointers?

*I posted an issue on problems with the site update over a week ago, and have had no input on that at all.

which includes my current buildout.cfg and tracebacks

Not sure where else to go with Plone questions.
Can I buy someone a beer to take a look at this issue? Or ???

Sorta feeling lonely out here!
Thx and remember
"Resilience is the new optimism" :wink:
(I'm trying, I'm trying... Uh, politics!?)
pf