1) Your website, and the dialup sounds, might be my favorite thing about all of this. I also like the cowboy hat.
2) Maybe it's just degrading under load, but I didn't think either chat experience was very good. Both avatars interrupted themselves a lot, and the chat felt more like a jumbled mess of half-thoughts than anything.
3) The image recognition is pretty good though, when I could get one of the avatars to slow down long enough to identify something I was holding.
Anyway great progress, and thanks for sharing so much detail about the specific hurdles you've faced. I'm sure it'll get much better.
Glad you liked the website it was such fun project. Getting the hug of death from HN so that might be why you're getting a worse experience, please try again :)