travisformayor It would be planning for a worst case scenario, and if governance selects a "safer" yield mechanism on only a small percentage of the Transmuter excess then I see where you're coming from.
Despite that, I think a buy back without a burn is introducing too many negative price pressure's onto ALCX. We would not only have a steady inflation, but would be paying devs in ALCX which they would presumably need to sell in order to benefit from. Introducing this kind of downward pressure on the price results in an asset that nobody wants to hold, which is worse for devs, holders, and arguably the protocol as a whole since it disincentivizes participation in governance.
I'm not completely opposed to a buy back, but I think it needs more thought. A burn is an easy remedy, but people have mixed opinions on the practical effects this has on the price. Another suggestion might be to completely replace the inflation of ALCX through farming with a portion of the bought back ALCX. This would at least curb the inflation of supply, although we'd still have a negative pressure on the price due to devs needing to sell in order to pay themselves. You need some kind of positive pressure on ALCX to counteract this, otherwise the value of governance over the protocol slowly decreases over time. The only mechanisms I know for accomplishing this are a dividend or burn