Modders sure. But for a successful modding community I think new modders are always needed. People passionate about DOS but not necessarily modding. So the tools taking a good chunk of hours to learn is an impediment for those folks. Even if only 1 in 20 were going to stick with it over the long haul.
Point taken, it's not friendly to first timers.
While we're on the subject - the biggest hurdle I've run into is you can't have a running save game through mod changes? For instance, I play the first hour of my campaign, but then I change something in the second hour. The save game I have doesn't reflect that change.
Am I missing something or is the save game editor and changing the player start position my only hope?