Re early dubstep/funky crossover, I guess the crossover point is with stuff like Lil Silva's "Tribal Land", Pearson Sound's "Wad" etc. Yeah there's def. a strong similarity between that and Hatcha's tribal stuff in particular.
I can see the mixture of the two sounds working very well, particularly if you're deliberately going for a frisky dubstep vibe - those tracks above are the kind that would (and in some cases have already) sound spectacular in, say, a Ramadanman set (or Ben's sets). Arguably "Wad" is dubstep as much as funky given the producer's background, though I think its strong housey feel makes it feel a little bit more like a funky track overall.
"Wad" forms an interesting test case for me. In actual funky sets I sometimes sense an imaginary, tenuous line back to house that needs to be preserved somewhat for things to work - stuff like Mak 10's "Sequencer" and even Lighter's "Skanker" push that to breaking point, at the risk of a certain reduction of vibe (though I think "Skanker" scrapes through on account of its tremendous energy). Even before I knew what it was and who it was by, "Wad" formed something of a test case for me - like it was somehow on the right side of some line and "Sequencer" was on the wrong side.
The point of which is not to advocate some form of purism (of the funky variety or otherwise) but rather to think of it in terms of a kind of gentle pressure - how to keep pushing that line so that it extends (and distends) further and further without actually breaking it or tripping over it.
The pushing-of-the-line stuff is almost always the best stuff of all - which is why "Tribal Land" and "Wad" and Scotty D's "Dream" are all in my top 10 funky tunes of 2009.
There are early dubstep tracks that I reckon would actually work fabulously well at maintaining/extending that vibe - "Conga Therapy" or DJ Abstract's "Touch" for example. I'm sure there are several other examples. Obv. quite a few Mala tunes.
In the same vein, I almost feel like "Shank Riddim" is already an honorary funky track. Kinda proven by how openly and proudly Ill Blu's "Time To Get Nasty" rips from it....
From a DJ set perspective what works for me is a kind of secret eclecticism - like, "lets drop "Left Leg Out" now and see whether anyone even notices that we've swtiched genres", rather than obvious sideways swerves. In the same way that to all intents and purposes "Doom's Night" was a garage track.
Perhaps hower the main reason that this particular crossover isn't being explored much is that the DJs by and large don't have those early dubstep records... Blackdown get on it.