You mentioned breaking up the file for team members, then hotlinking everything back in. This brings up a question for me about your workflow. Were you doing much work in the compiled PLN, or most of it in the separate files that were hotlinked into the big PLN? How frequently did you need to Save from the big PLN file?
While Hotlinks are absolutely essential for repetitive elements such as unit plans, and very useful for isolating separate buildings, you may find that in ArchiCAD 13 that the Teamwork 2 process allows more flexible and speedy collaborative work than ever before. In many cases, sending in changes to the BIM Server is significantly faster than saving the file locally.
How much did you use Teamwork on this project?