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How can jealousy of other's entrepreneurial success be a significant factor when there's very little entrepreneurial success to speak of?

That's why there is little entrepreneurial success.
I know a woman who opened a laundromat. It took her around five years to get it approved and opened. A couple of years later, she wanted to open a second laundromat and faced the exact same hurdles even though she could show that her business model was a successful one. Most people would just give up. You can't complain that there are no opportunities, yet stifle any attempt to better yourself.
When I brought up the crab bucket mentality, I was basing that on a conversation that I had with a woman who had moved off the reservation with her husband. They were doing fairly well making and selling jewelery. They bought a house. They purchased health insurance because they didn't want to depend on Indian Health Services since they traveled frequently and they felt they could get better care outside of the IHS network. When family members heard about the health insurance they were admonished to drop the coverage because, "you're not better than us". The gist of the conversation that I had with her boiled down to if they couldn't buy insurance for the whole tribe then they shouldn't buy it at all.
Tangent: Navajos and Health care is a strange thing. Where I work we are all covered by private health care (BCBS) and most of the employees make ~$13+/hr. They will take an entire day off of work to drive 50 miles each way to the IHS clinic where they won't have to pay instead of go to a doctor in town and pay their $25.00 deductible (and not have to miss any work)
Back on the original topic: an OSS type solution might work. The reason satellite is currently used is because of the vast amount of land that needs to be covered and the huge distances between users. Putting wireless repeaters on the top of power poles that run along the main roads (where there is actual copper) coupled with OLPC style ad-hoc repeaters and even adding something like the Brisbane Mesh could work. It would require serious buy-in from the powers that be and it would need to require the tribal government to do something. As it stands now, they don't pay their own bill; it's a grant from the FCC, according to TA. This is another problem for them. There is a sense of entitlement that's pervasive. Again, I point back to the "Doing Business" segment. When an on reservation cell tower demands twice the lease what an off reservation tower would run it makes it difficult to justify doing business on the reservation. Running even, or even below, the lease cost of an off reservation tower would be the smartest thing to do if your goal is to provide more coverage to your residents. Cell phone companies are in business to make a profit. It doesn't pay anyone if they cannot afford to maintain the towers on the Rez or if they end up hemorrhaging money and go out of business.
This internet billing dispute has been running for a year now, it's not like the network went dark overnight. They've had a year to think about a different solution, which could include the tribe actually paying for their own satellite connection, instead of the FCC grant. It's not as if the satellite providing service fell out of the sky. Heck, they could even negotiate with the cell phone company that eventually put up towers to throw a wireless repeater on top of the existing towers and create their own mesh network.
The summary asks

While the business mechanisms play themselves into the expected ludicrous snarl, the real question may be: Is there a place for an inexpensive ham/technogeek/FOSS solution that could bypass the antics of the for-pay providers?

Perhaps. The real answer may be along the lines of the old joke, How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but the bulb has to want to change.

See : http://www.brismesh.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Australia
Brismesh (state)
Local

A digital terrain model is used to see what nodes are within line of sight in the Node Database

We're experimenting with intercity connects as well, ofther with the helpl of RF/amaterur radio experts.

...it provides heaps of motivation for
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Wireless Networks. And the government finds it pretty difficult to argue against them.

The node database for Sydney looks identical to the one used for the Brisbane wireless mesh.

http://www.brismesh.org/

In brisbane there are 397 nodes, and 25 active interfaces.

Not so much excitement as there was a few months ago, as people move to actually get links active.

Also much of the excitement died down when a few people started getting polical and beurocraticalness++

But that is needed as people need to deal with the government. Much of brisbanes success is because of its organisation, and some very helpful people.

Organisation, and helpfulness is the key to making these things work(plus having a telco which likes to shaft everyone helps with peoples motivation ;) If it wasn't for heaps of hills in brisbane, there would be more links I'm sure. I've got my two cards, and lap tops, just need to get the pig tails and construct a couple of aerials.


http://brismesh.org/