During the last few days I came to the conclusion that W3 modding community is truly dying and there is simply nothing to look forward to. AFAIK, Wolven Kit development stalled (GitHub wasn't updated) and lack of comprehensive W3 modding tools is probably the biggest cause of W3 modding decline, while the lack of knowledge is the second biggest cause of the same decline.
Knowledgeable Veteran-W3-modders who have done diligent and hard work in researching, testing, modding, fixing, etc., hoard the most important available aspect of W3 modding, knowledge, to themselves. I think it happens because veteran modders feel it would be unfair for other W3-modder-wannabees to gain that knowledge easily, from some simple guide, while it was them (the veteran/advanced modders) who performed all that research and were forced to work with crude, inflexible, and limited W3 tools. W3 modding knowledge is scarce as hell and that makes it valuable. Considering that modders owe nothing to anyone, in some way, I can sympathize with their attitude, but I wonder where humanity would be today if valuable knowledge would be constantly hoarded by those who discovered it, without teaching it to others. Knowledge should be passed on for the sake of the community/humanity.
That's not only my opinion. I've communicated with quite a few people on Nexus who complained of exactly the same thing. You see a modder who has done something cool, send him a PM inquiring how he figured those things out, and chances you'll ever even get a reply are some 5%, even though you see that modder being active almost daily. Sure, modders have lives, owe you nothing, may not like you, or have whatever reasons not to reply, but my gut feeling is that they don't want to be bothered with explaining all that info. I've posted many questions and I am certain that those veteran modders know the answers or semi-answers or at least how to work around those questions/answers/issues, but they aren't going to post a reply regardless. Besides, it would require more than just replying to people's inquiries. They'd have to write up comprehensive guides with sole purpose of making as many people understand it, as possible, and not target only other veteran modders with technical jargon and process complexities that, with effort, could be simplified. Maybe people with similar opinions and me are wrong about this, but it definitely "feels" that way...
Perfect example with HD Reworked Project - THE very top mod on Nexus for W3. In HDRP thread I was discussing certain aspects of meshes, textures, custom fallback items, and how I was trying to get vanilla Stone_Wall meshes (that many prefer to HDRP 4.8 meshes) to use custom textures created by HalkHogan for his custom meshes, but shortly afterwards Halk replied with "Leave it to me!" because, it appears, that if you don't already know how, then you shouldn't even try to learn, and as suggested, "Leave to the mod author"...
I know too little, but when I learn something that can improve an existing mod by fixing/adding/removing, repacking/recooking, then I do it, and release it as some "repack" with whichever changes, giving all credit to the original mod author. I also tend to provide info on how I made it happen in simple language to both mod authors and mod fans/downloaders.