No, I would definitely not decline, I would be happy to accept, as long as it is free for non-commercial use.

So here is the flaw in your logic.  These educational and scientific organizations are not in the business of maintaining physical circuits.  That is left to the Level3's, Vodafone's and Cogent's of the world.  Each of these organizations lease circuits and dark fiber from them.  None of them have laid a single piece of cable from one country to another (with perhaps the exception being CERN).  They are in the business of Science!  Not telecommunications.  At some point you are left with peering on a commercial network broadcasting your routes.

Either I am unclear or you haven't got it. I would accept free transit from anyone, but I wouldnt trust anyone else than hams with 44/8 addresses, not even research and education networks.
Free transit does not involve ham resources.

If multi-million dollar corporations and cities are having a hard time implementing it, what makes you think a group of blowhards wearing plastic antennas can do it better?

Well, it is often easier to do things that are guaranteed not ever to become commercial than things that definitely are commercial since everyone wants a piece of the pie.

While I completely understand your position and agree with it in some aspect, the fact is that 44net itself is not a space regulated by the IARU and other than whatever your country applies to free speech, is not bound to keeping with non-commercial/non-business rules.  It is a allotment of public network address space.  Nothing more.  Nothing less. 

I am certainly aware of that 44net is not regulated by IARU, but by ICANN and that IANA and regional registries may be watching us. I am under the impression, correct me if I am wrong, that the rules applying to 44net are very unclear since the allocation is unique and that it might be better to show good conduct rather than ask or misbehave.