I can attest to the quality of your 1.7.3. A parallel Russian version of this game (still in active development) uses your 1.7.3. At least these Russian guys actually added lots (full Russian text translation, extended story, new gameplay options, new areas, more random events, image overhauls, etc.) What's more, they are decent enough to credit you as well as many other earlier modders in the "Development" section of the main menu. Lastly their latest mod is named, humbly enough, just 1.7.7.4. Talk about understatement for a mod that does so much while simultaneously giving proper credits. On the other hand...
Uhh... don't be surprised if you're about to be twice cursed by the guys working on version 2.0. You're hardly mentioned or credited, if at all. In fact, in-game, except for Old Huntsman and the two guys, everybody else (including you) is reduced to "Hongfire community" and "F95Zone community."
Version 1.8 is your 1.7.5 with minor improvements that was overcompensated by so many added bugs. Version 2.0 is an image and audio pack of version 1.8 that fixes some of the bugs introduced by 1.8 (as well as their own 2.0). So in effect, once they release 2.0 in full, basically it's just an image and audio pack of your 1.7.5 (because your version has none of the bugs of 1.8 and the ones they keep adding to 2.0).