" consolidating " has been happening for some time now even if some few features here and there still gets added. You can't get " all the improvements " without the bugs that goes with them, until the bugs got fixed.
But it also feels like we were at a turning point where the game got heavily updated in its core code but that's not much seen by the player, and the fact life happened that prevented the storylines from being released when scheduled. Meaning if an AIO gets released, the players might fail to see what the big fuss was about and ask / not understand why did it took that long for not that many visible changes (even if there's still a good numer of them visibles but it might not feel like it was worth a 5 month wait). Especially when that requires them to create a new game and being unable to use an old save.
Which, for the stories, Starbuck plans on separating her current content so it gets added in smaller bunches, easier and faster to fix and add, rather than waiting for the whole big chunk to get fixed. So that hopefully an AIO can be released sooner than later to avoid feeling like players have lost their time trying out that new update.
As for the mods, I'm not sure which " many " mods you're refering to. From what I can see, only 3 or 4 (Kina, Kaiden, Moresome and probably one other I'm forgetting) are getting updated, which seems like half (at best), not " many ". Unless I look at the wrong place, but I'm looking at the Discord mod-release channel.
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Oh I do not per se disagree that things happened out of control and that maybe not enough big visible story changes or progress are there due to that, just that will always be the case, unless maybe when graphical overhaul will be fully done and implemented, but since that is the effort of only one or a few people and loads of images need to be rendered that might take a bit understandably. Just I do think it would be wise to concentrate on an AIO and bug squashing for what has been developed so everyone is on same page again and has a bugless version that the mods work on as well. People are free to decide whether they think it worth to replay again or not themselves.
Waiting for more story content in a game that basically never ends and can always add more to a story has the same danger as feature creep, you never get finished and have a new AIO, since like you said you keep creating new stuff and new bugs. So yeah, if it were my decision I would focus a bit on an AIO now and let the other work continue for those not involved in that work. Still it is not my decision and if Trist and team decide different for their reasons that is fine as well, just as a team be aware that then it may well be June before more story content will be truly there and do you then have enough visible changes for 9 months?