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How long does the patent process take these days (my fear is that it's a 3-4 year process (based on review of some application and issue dates)?

Is there any possibility of an attorney filing the patent on a contingent basis with me just paying the filing fees and cutting them in on the eventual licensing? (I'm assuming the odds of this go up some with a functioning prototype that I can present to them so they can see the benefit)

You can fast-track an application under certain circumstances.  For a while, they were allowing anyone with two patent applications on file to abandon one and get the other fast-tracked.  If you're age 65+ or in poor health, you can file a "petition to make special".  There was also a program where applications were "made special" for an additional fee and with a thorough search performed.  I'm not up-to-date on this week's USPTO special promotions menu, but at a minimum, the health/age-related one is still available.

Some attorneys do take stakes in applications, but it's not common.  Aside from the legal-ethics issues involved, the reality is that marketing is even more important to an invention's success than patent protection is.