First of all, it is not a rant.
As an end user, I appreciated all the work done for most of the mods, people worked in their free time, mostly for free and brought us some of the most marvellous and amazing range of aircrafts (and some time vehicles) and many of them are still right in my mod list. Some of them even managed to become official modules.
Second, it is not about abandonware.
Each of the mods was unique. The mod makers were also unique in their own situation. Yes, there were mods which were abandoned due to reasons of any kind. There was no commitment, unless otherwise specified. ED might not love every single one of them and not incorporating them into the official part of the system, but as long as we were enjoying them, I had not issue with this.
Thirdly, it is about the future.
I saw many talents and some of them were magical -- from a person who did coding for a living would mean something I guess. Well, I know many possessed some skills that were truly unique -- e.g. creating the HMD display on UH-60L out of the blue, vector thrusting on various projects. I think it would have be a waste for many of these technical skills could benefit other models. I sincerely hoped there could have been more exchanges of skill around. It would flourish the community and benefited the user at the end.
And for a more sensitive subject -- money. This was a very complicated subject. I knew direct donation might be a way, but it would make the relationship between the donor and the mod maker more complicated. I would personally like to see more mods outside the use of FC3, e.g. the F-16I projects. Instead of giving money directly, it might be a way to "crowdfund" an official module to a community or individual for modding.
Just my silly and unfiltered thoughts. Thank you for read this till the end.