Honestly, I think when he is talking about steam, I'm starting to wonder if he wasn't actually contracted to do the steam art in and of itself. Considering the reason why it's going to steam and all that, if that's the case, I completely support him focusing on that.
I don't know.
The whole notion of DF starting as ascii+keyboard only project (how many mouse features were added by dfhack?) was bad idea to begin with, considering roguelikes with graphics existed all that time. Also controls in DF were wanky to begin with, when compared to the best of them all, ever - ADOM.
DF does need some serious update, both in graphics and in adding modern features - I've been playing games since atari and the likes and I really don't miss poor interfaces from back then.
All that being said, I've suggested it before to turn Masterwork DF into a semi-open github or bb repository and allowing mod creators to contribute, so that it would not be a one man's project with a single point of failure.
Many mod makers (and MDF is actually a modpack with a launcher) have expressed their bitterness about how their content was lost in the crowd and that they no longer have control over what goes into MDF.
As a modmaker myself I can understand that, hence my suggestion - and a year later, still nothing.
So as much a creating graphics for commercial version of DF is all fine and dandy, let us not forget that MDF itself had huge impact on number of people playing this game. Abandoning the project in favour of pixeart may have unforeseen, negative consequences in the long run - unless steam version will have all the features from dfhack and some mods included alongside graphics.
Now I'm relatively new to this and, as an avid modder, I know the pains of having to tone down what's in a modded game for the sake of simplicity. As far as what I like, for what little I've been able to play so far, I like it as is. Like how modular you already made it, though I can understand the utter annoyance at having to rely on outside programs to do what you want to do. Honestly, I'd say just get rid of as much bloat as you can, and keep whatever you feel really needs to be in there/others want to stay.
A one man's bloat is another man's favourite feature.
Besides 'cut the feature that is too hard to fix' is all too common approach in game development industry (worked in there for years).
You may want to be more careful suggesting all that, someone may be listening.
