I don’t think the Treasury should be paying for a dozen or more clients, when eventually we will see 3-5 competing clients.
Yes, it might be argued to have a R&D budget, but that should come from a position of "How much is JAM client diversity worth to the Treasury? (in addition to what the JAM prize already offers).
And it is worth whatever is neccessary to keep enough nodes online to keep the chain running in case a client fails. I would assume that the most dominant clients will be dependent on high performance, so if such a program is devised, I would only make the 3-5 first clients that reach the performance milestones to be eligible.
Last note: The JAM prize was offered in DOT, not USD, so anyone engaging in the competition should be aware of the risk. Risk and Reward go hand in hand. It could equally be argued that the JAM prize pool should be raised.