They should have called it SSHTTP3

Secure SHell -Text Transfer Protocol 3?

Anyone should treat any new crypto project which hasn't seen a lot of testing from others as such, no matter who it came from. Even if this was some sort of proposal of the OpenSSH people.

The project is associated with the Louvain university; I would rate the risk of outright malicious tomfoolery to be quite low.

Well, if it was a proposal of the OpenSSH people you'd bet it would get a lot of testing from others real quick.

But to even consider calling it SSH3 is really quite silly, first impression doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

"Confidence" in what? Ability to name things? It's making a mountain out of a molehill. It's certainly not an issue with the crypto or code.

Judgement? Having attention for detail? Being in touch with the community?

Just a bad look / first impression.