"It's about doing the legwork of filling in the blanks that Toady left in the raws."
Which can, once again, be done without ever involving Toady.
For one thing, once all that dull work is actually completed and gathered into a nice little package, it's likely to be a whole lot more convincing of whatever it is you're trying to convince us of, than a "hey guys, let's all do so-and-so" scenario, which-statistically speaking-is probably never going to get off the ground, anyway.
For another, Toady doesn't seem to have any desire, whatsoever, for anyone else to "help" with his project, in any official capacity. Ever. Period. Who says he'll ever fill in the blanks for us? Or that he even has a stake in having them filled?
Thirdly: If he wants help, he's more than capable of asking for it--and has, with other aspects of the game, such as bug-hunting.
A fourth reason is, quite simply, by leaving all those blanks unfilled, he's giving the Modding community an impetus to do something about it, if the desire to do it is there. And not just one, "official" thing, but as many different takes and versions of it that we can come up with. Which increases the entertainment of the game, atleast for some people.
I agree with what you're saying--that those blanks should be filled, that all that boring but important legwork should be done, but I don't agree that it requires some sort of community blood-drive to do it.
Take a look at my mod sometime. You'll see...I dunno, a couple hundred different types of new vermin that I'm working on adding to the game. By the time I'm done, it'll probably be close to a thousand. None of it's official, most of it's pretty damn dull, and every bit of it was made to entertain myself, not the community. I like doing it, and I don't need permission to do it. Filling all those blanks-my way, and my way alone-is my entertainment.
If you really want to help with that kind of project, feel free to help me out with my mod. You can start right now by checking what I've got for typos and posting ideas, and I'll give you full credit for your work. Or you could help research medicine/surgery stuff. Just send me a PM, and I'll happily put you to work on that.