Forgive me for asking what has probably been said already, but this starting from scratch thing has taken me completely by surprise and is honestly just sad... Could someone point me to an older post or someplace that explains the reasoning behind starting over..?
There was no official statement about that. Maybe on discord, but not here.
It's possible to say a few things about what changed, but not about the reason. For the first half of the past year there was talk about replacing the old renders while continuing the game and then in autumn a complete rework was announced.
I can of course only guess, but I'd say that he wasn't happy with some design decisions (code, managing overlays and so on). Reworking the old renders would have meant to a) stick to the flawed system or b) havig two different systems running at the same time. Both is a pain in the ass, b) even more so. Remaking everything with the new one would make more sense from a programmers point of view. He already has a sh**tload of renders, but he needs to split them into overlays again. The new data structure seems to be a bit more straightforward and better organized and while there are actually more clothing options now, he has one image per option and not sometimes split top and bottom (bra, panties, 2 options for each ) and sometimes one overlay that handles the whole body (towel for example). It's a bit easier to handle with less potential for bugs.