Actually, I would rather like to have a font which exactly clones the
old lyrics font. But this is probably me only.
This points to one problem I see with this approach: If one wanted
to create something new (or rework something existing) there would
be _much_ discussion to do. And I don't know if this would lead to
some agreement. I recall the heated debate when Janek retouched the
single glyph of the treble clef and don't dare to imagine the
potential conflicts when it comes to a whole font.
Well, similar to the lilypond glyphs which are essentially based on
Bärenreiter shapes, we could take, say, the text glyph shapes of
Universal Edition from a certain range of years (e.g. stuff published
between WW I and WW II).
Cloning an existing font specimen which gets then polished by a
professional designer is the way to go IMHO. Similar to the music
glyphs, those shapes have evolved over many years and have been used
for some generations.