I have updated original post with concrete plans for the remaining work for this mod. I believe that with effort, this mod will be realized according to my original dream. Everything I originally set out to do is now possible in Starsector 0.6a+. I have some experimentation to do yet, and lots of coding and artwork, naturally, but this mod absolutely will be completed. It is not vaporware.
Highest on my list is the artwork itself, because that is the part that represents the largest amount of remaining work while also being the most "future-proof" with respect to Starsector game engine changes. In other words once I have the sprites, they won't need to be updated much after that, if at all. Following that work, I will be auditing all the existing ships for features that can now be implemented, or implemented better than they currently are. This, too, will be a significant amount of work. Lastly, implementing all new ships, with all their crazy systems and abilities; no small amount of work there either, but my exploration into these APIs via my other modding work has shown me that it's actually pretty straightforward, just takes a bit of planning.
When all of this gets done, the mod will be limited at that point to a series of missions. While that was always a great deal of fun, silentstormpt has shown a desire for a campaign version of the mod. I see no reason not to do the same to my mod eventually, except I have no desire to implement all the old dialog and so forth, animated portraits and what-not; my campaign would be more of an expansion to the missions' content. In other words you'll be able to start as the Hegemony or Alliance, and you'll play a sort of hybrid between SC1 and SC2 map gameplay; I see there being a static system map pre-populated with factions and so on, and you've got to turn the tide of a war for control of the galaxy. Capturing planets to produce more ships etc, assigning targets for your faction etc. Stuff like that. But that's pretty far out in the future.