It does seem like just handing over the project (using Media Manager) will be the most straightforward, so that’s the route I’ll go.
I’m still curious about why FCP wouldn’t bring in a quicktime exported from FCP itself from a merged/linked clip with more than 2 source media files. Maybe its just a bug in 7.0? I’ve tried it on a couple of different projects with different media and I can’t get it to work.