Ursurper, you are absolutely right or at least I agree with most of what you say.
To reflect on a few specific things:
Most guard systems are something of a curse and have never been properly integrated into the mod. They were specifically prohibited from having any rumors of consequence and excluded from the storyline for many years. We were going to delete them in 4.87 completely but for backwards compatibility reasons this is not going to happen.
Mooring support is on the list for 4.87. How hard? Turns out it's moderately hard because the mooring modifications conflict with other modifications and a lot of nasty reverse engineering is needed to make it all work.
Sure, I did a bunch of FLHook things but this underplays the massive effort the infocard team did (15,000 infocards didn't come from no where), the modellers, the system editing and economy. I'm absolutely certain that without people like Aeternus, Blodo, Mjolnir, Jinx, Xoria and lots of others, 4.86 would have never come out.
Many of the things you recommend are pretty hard to do as we've pushed this old engine well past it's limits and the cracks are showing. We do try though.
I do recommend Crossfire. In many, if not most respects it is technically better than Discovery with a high production quality.
'noob-friendliness' is probably my biggest concern and I don't have great answers for how to achieve this. Suggestions are welcome.
Proud member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
