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[TheBiggerFish]

Double Trigrams:
It could be an unused character (noise, for no real reason other than to confuse would-be codebreakers?), or perhaps it represents some sort of special character?
To be honest, I am very out of my depth here.  My depth, in this case, is ROT13.

Did we try plugging in that signature, seeing if we get anything meaningful out?  I mean, we have a few common letters there.

Do we KNOW he was writing to himself?

Piecewise probable confirm of the Love Doctor VonNost theory?
Wait, brevity.
Key = VonNost.  Now what.
Would...Hm.  This is ENTIRELY random but MAYBE it's VonNost + (or -, capital/lowercase) the letter values, plusminus the actual ciphertext?

[Hapah]

You won't get anything that specific out of him. It's best not to focus on that bit too heavily anyway: even if you knew what the letters that corresponded to the last handful of letters meant, you still don't have a meaningful way to apply that to the rest of the document.

[Toaster]

That confirms two things, really:

1)  There is a key
2)  It's not long

1 is probably more of a clue than 2.

[Nikitian]

That confirms two things, really:

1)  There is a key
2)  It's not long

1 is probably more of a clue than 2.

Actually, to these points raised by that hint, I would add the following (not quite so certain, unlike the first two, of course):

3)Rhyming might matter (i.e. an answer to "why that particular formatting?")
4)"I am a sucker for flattery" - was there much explicit "flattery" in the last few posts? I don't think so (well, there was some, but I doubt it was enough to warrant a free hint just of itself), so we might actually be up against the point of "wow, guys, I am flattered that you expect such exquisite encrypting madness from me, but I'm afraid it actually wasn't there" - i.e. we're reached the point of overcomplicating the answer

Also, since no one mentioned it so far, I believe, calling out the possibility of the "signature" including "[Firstname] VonNost" or even just "[Firstname]". Was his name ever mentioned anywhere? I don't think so,  but being a fruit hanging so low, I wouldn't put it past Piecewise not to troll our efforts this way (and/or use this opportunity to conveniently tell us his name, but that's a whole different purpose, of course). After all, "You did not ask" is another oldest trick in the book, isn't it? 

[TheBiggerFish]

You won't get anything that specific out of him. It's best not to focus on that bit too heavily anyway: even if you knew what the letters that corresponded to the last handful of letters meant, you still don't have a meaningful way to apply that to the rest of the document.

Like I said, random theory.  And probably silly.

As for overcomplication...Entirely possible.  I still think it references Hapah, but I really have no idea.

[Ozarck]

DaVinci (and other inventors) was known to encode a lot of his notes. He would even include errors in illustrations of his inventions, so they wouldn't work properly if one followed the design as specified. This was to keep invention poachers from stealing his ideas. So it is possible that he wrote to himself. It is not necessary, but I think it a reasonable assumption. Besides, I doubt he would end a letter with "Love," anyway. The man strikes me as too cerebral and idealistic (for a given value of idealism)to want to be bogged down by such romantic expression. Even if there were someone he loved enough to use "Love" with, he wouldn't then follow up with "Doctor VonNost." An affectionate term followed by a practical title? a bit jarring.

4)"I am a sucker for flattery" - was there much explicit "flattery" in the last few posts? I don't think so (well, there was some, but I doubt it was enough to warrant a free hint just of itself), so we might actually be up against the point of "wow, guys, I am flattered that you expect such exquisite encrypting madness from me, but I'm afraid it actually wasn't there" - i.e. we're reached the point of overcomplicating the answer

Hapah called him clever and said he values cleverness. His entire post was somewhat praising in tone toward PW and his methodology.

However, I think PW wants this cracked. He's nudged us at least twice before.So the free hint was both a "shucks, you ol' charmer you," and a "come on guys, get on with it."

[piecewise]

Let me know when you want an actual hint. It's been a few months, I think.

[Urist McCoder]

Did Doctor vonost do anything with the theory of relativity, such as time travel expirements

[Hapah]

Did Doctor vonost do anything with the theory of relativity, such as time travel expirements

No idea. Where are you heading with that line of thought?

[Urist McCoder]

As in the theory of relativity and that the amount of time spent in space is breif

[Hapah]

Let me know when you want an actual hint. It's been a few months, I think.

Not just yet. Got a new theory that I wanna work on a little.

[Hapah]

Aaaargh stupid cipher. Well, smart cipher: I can't get into it!

How many tokens get shaved off the prize for a hint? Or can we ask for a specific amount deducted and get a hint worth about that much?

[piecewise]

Aaaargh stupid cipher. Well, smart cipher: I can't get into it!

How many tokens get shaved off the prize for a hint? Or can we ask for a specific amount deducted and get a hint worth about that much?

I can choose an amount or you can. Either way.

[Hapah]

Well, what amount of token hint do you guys want? Or am I the only person still working on this any significant amount?

I'm thinking 5 or 10 token's worth.

[NJW2000]

Stuff it. I don't have the concentration atm.

Basically, what if the commonest trigrams were spaces, full stops, and commas? Or other punctuation? Just like PW to encrypt something with Brackets, for example, I'm guessing...

And the rest (because nobody needs x) were bigrams, representing a single letter?

Would this work? Totally taking most of the credit if I'm right.