Sorry, I skimmed through the thread before responding. I missed the "Nintendo should buy back Rare..."
Frankly, if Nintendo should buy anything, they should buy Bungie Studios and take Halo. Nintendo needs a good "modern" FPS series, and considering how many games are in the Halo series, it'd fit in nicely with Nintendo's philosophy of a game release for major franchises every few years.
In my opinion, the Donkey Kong series doesn't have to be made by Rare, and frankly I trust Nintendo to handle who develops it. From what I've heard, Donkey Kong Country Returns fared pretty nicely with its predecessors, so the series is in good hands, even if we aren't as familiar with them as we are with rare.