1.2.5 was a blessing and a curse. It allowed the modding scene to flourish and focus on content, but it also had severe limitations to work around. Compared to nowadays it wasn't mod friendly at all, and while people found ingenious ways to wriggle around the limitations and do stuff anyways, it also made the community settle into a suboptimal pattern. When 1.3 finally came, and brought really really important and necessary changes, it was immensely painful to update mods because people were simply so used to crutches.
The break in 1.2.5 was sufficient for mod authors to get some really awesome concepts, then 1.3 came and... well... the rat race was on again!
Compare nowadays: Mojang is running at full speed with updates, and most modders just can't keep up with simply matching the version, let alone do content updates. But on the other hand, why is Mojang running? Because they're going through a process that's going to hurt no matter what. They have the option of breaking things hard over and over and over very slowly, or very quickly. It's the equivalent of doing a bikini wax and pulling it off very slowly or ripping it off very quickly. Most people actually prefer and recommend the latter!
Minecraft is changing under the hood in a way that morphs it from a form-follows-function block of proprietary code that people need to hack into to change, into a standardized framework for people to build on with convenient, supported tools. Would you rather that this change took five years to complete - or would you want it done and over with?
Two sides of a coin. Both are equally valid, but only one of them can be face up at any time. You must make a sacrifice either way.
I've got quite a few reservations about this, and about how Mojang proposes the API. I've listened to their video on how they propose modding will end up like. I'm not so sure it will be a good thing for the modders or the users. At a very minimum, Minecraft is going to have to incorporate a fairly robust ID fixing system. The user-friendly way they plan on implementing mods means you can end up with two mods using the same ID's, and it is going to have to work. Worse, with their focus on SMP, they're going to have to make sure that everyone using the same combination of mods gets the same ID's every time. Which means either a) mod authors are assigned ID's to use, or b) no one uses ID's in their actual code, they use a variable which is then defined when the Minecraft instance is started up based on an identical algorithm. That's going to be a PITA to implement, and it's going to lag minecraft loading mods because it has to, on the fly, assign ID numbers to every mod as they load up.
Next, the problem is that every mod will have to be able to work with any other mod. This means total conversion mods (like BTW) are going to end up on a sticky wicket. Also mod authors who historically do not wish their mods in the same pack are going to get really unhappy when they are forced to be able to by
Mojang. I'm fairly sure everyone knows what I am talking about here. The small upside here is that if anyone crashes Minecraft deliberately with the new system, Mojang itself can and will intervene, and it IS their code, and at that point it WILL be deliberately crashing their code, and I'm fairly sure they won't put up with that. Remember, you'll be submitting your 'plugins' to Mojang directly once the API is realized. It's not like you're operating in a marginal and officially overlooked grey area which only a tiny fraction of the minecraft population is even aware of, Mojang will be bringing this up on the front menu, where every Minecraft player can access mods, and are downloaded from Mojang's repositories. Crashing Minecraft from the title screen is going to get Mojang very pissed at you because that is Mojang customers you are screwing with, and I can't see any company just letting that go.
Unfortunately, that also brings up my third reservation about the new API: Bland Oatmeal Code. Any API gives you options. Some give you more than others. The whole point of the API is to permit you to modify some aspects of the game while restricting access to others. I'm getting the impression that it will be rather like WoW's Addons, but with more flexibility about what the mods can do. However, the problem here is that some mods just won't be able to achieve their functionality within that API, which means at that point... they're pretty much abandoned. You will be left with a bajillionty 'I add a dozen new materials, and weapons and armor that are made with them!' type mods, and a baker's dozen 'gun mods', but I'm not sure how they will be able to incorporate things like the Forge Ore Dictionary or the Liquids Dictionary or anything like that.
