I love how you call everyone elses' ROM a rip-off of a CM ROM.
I know I'm wasting my time here and I really don't care anyway.
Still I think I have to clarify that I'm not talking about people using some "builds". I'm talking about the source code.
If you want to build a ROM for the Legend (and nearly every other device out there) you've got two choices: Push some files from official releases (RUUs) around and zip them, or compile from source.
As a matter of fact there's no project out there that releases working source code (for anything but Google's official devices) except for CyanogenMod.
Video encoding or decoding? msm* support? Backported code for ancient libcamera, libril and framework support for said ancient libraries? GPS backport or implementation? Kernel backports for Gingerbread? Yeah, good luck finding that somewhere else (no, I don't mean the CAF repositories where we are copying from and giving credit of course).
Get a life guys, no one would attempt to use your builds unless said person was extremely lazy.
"Get a life"? Come on, don't be ridiculous.
MD5-sums can be quite revealing by the way. Or boot messages (like "Welcome to CyanogeMod" in MIUI). Some people were even charging for shady rip-offs – that's why the CM team ultimately decided to close down development and switch to "release when it's done".
Seriously, over 160 attempts at a nightly build...
Sorry, but you didn't understand the concept of a nightly build? There are no "attempts at a nightly build" and they are not even meant for users. Nightly builds are there to see if current code in the repositories still compiles. Nothing else.
All roms worth mention is variations of one of those.. (for Legend that is)
Unfortunately not only for the Legend but for most other devices too.
Android was said to be open but in fact it's just proprietary crap again. No developer wants to spend months doing the work of forty CM devs, so they either join CM – or sometimes steal their work declaring it as their own – or use (or combine) binaries from official releases.