The Dickens project was named such likely as a reference to A Christmas Carol, with its ghosts. Basically, the idea was to take living people (such as the Chief Corporate Court Justice), kill them, and replace them with 'ghosts', simulacra that were advanced enough that they couldn't be told from the original when going through the matrix. Nasty stuff, really. No book goes into detail on it, more than some oblique references. Like Celedyr's Albuquerque facility, it is talked about in several books, but doesn't go into detail.
As for the Azzies, I'd say they were there for the magic side of things. Even though EVO and NeoNET are megas, and have access to magic, they aren't known for it like the Azzies are. (And Celedyr might have had to share more info than he wished to tap into NeoNET's magical assets.) The Azzies are the current leaders when it comes to large scale magic rituals and questionable ethics, and they've got their cybermancy program, so they know a bit about combining magic and tech. All of which was required to take the E-Ghost of a dragon and implant him back in his body with nanites.
