Quote: "If you have a history of creating and finishing games or are offering payment then the mods will likely leave you to it"
Yeah, well, 7 games finished over the last 9 years, 5 being sold worldwide, two own games on desura and two on Steam.
I fully understand your point with
Quote: "fickle ideas from 'start ups' who have no idea how to run a 'team'"
, however those with a decent track record should have some kind of forum or sticky to search for freelancers and employees. See Epics Unreal forums.
AMD FX 8Core @ 4GHZ - 16 GB DDR4 - 2xRadeon7950 - Windows 7 Ultimate