Okay, after putting some serious thought in I decided to hold off on applying this round. I think I might have a little too much going on to guarantee I'm not going to hit a busy point this fall. I hope to apply next round though!
To answer your first question, Dagnidrea, everyone has RL committments and we understand that -- as long as you get done what you commit to getting done, that's what matters. Also, although we'd be adding the new team members in really soon, we understand that y'all will be jumping in right towards the end of our preparations for Shaoman (coming 10/22 to the Frivolous Fun forum! :P ) and we aren't going to expect you to like plan and run a whole event by yourself by then or anything. On the OE team, everyone helps out where help is needed, and for Shaoman, you'll be jumping in to help out with plans that are already in motion -- so to make a ridiculously long and wordy answer short(er), yes, that would be fine.
And I definitely encourage anyone who is considering this or who doesn't know what they want to do for their SM contribution to apply!