The real problem here is the lack of liquidity.
Looking (again) at IMU, though their market cap is approximately only 4 times bigger than RAC, their daily value of shares traded will typically well exceed $10 million. RAC on the other hand typically trades under $1million per day and some days struggles to crack $500,000 dollars worth (e.g. today).
So accounting for difference in market cap, on any average day IMU will have 3-6 times the liquidity (in dollar value) of RAC. Of course, in shares, relative liquidity is an order of magnitude higher again given the lower price per IMU share, but that's not as important assuming people are aware of the concept of market capitalisation (though it does appear that is a big assumption given some of the postings I've seen).
This lack of liquidity will make institutions wary of coming onto the register, as not only building a position is hard, but exiting that position is likely even harder given that would typically need to happen much faster if they've decided to exit. Even a lot of individuals here with a reasonable holding would face a similar issue... I'm certainly thankful I've no need or intent to sell my shares.
If RAC's liquidity were on par with IMU, BGs shares (or the subset he wants gone), would be history by now.
As to what the root cause of this is, I agree it's 1 and 2 as you've listed above... with the sticky longs in particular it would be interesting to know what the actual pool of available shares in RAC available on any typical day is, but with many shares "permanently" off market it would certainly be far fewer than the SOI. New interest in RAC to bid up the price would definitely help to loosen up some shares and improve liquidity, which in itself would bring in more interest. There's a bit of chicken and egg going here I think, and we need something to break the deadlock (likely positive news).
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