The "based on a snippet" aspect sounds analagous to the Exquisite Corpse technique of only seeing a sliver of the adjacent drawing.

I have been doing some Flash collaborations with a friend in New Zealand. The allure of doing a collaboration in Flash, to me, is the ability to share the library of symbols, to use other participants' symbols in creative or experimental ways. Maybe we could set up a collaboration where each contributor is allowed to create a limited number (3?) of graphic elements to put in the "stew". All contributors have to build new symbols and movie clips based on those simple/early elements.

Seems like it would better keep cohesiveness that way.

Let me know if you start a Flash collaboration? ...e