>there isn’t much more they can do without re writing the whole thing.
Personally, I disagree with this. TF contains a lot of small problems that could be fixed with very little effort (such as changing the mouse-cursor depending on which mode the UI is in (select, construct, bulldoze etc.), displaying the information for a particular line that’s currently in the “Mange lines” window in the “Line” window (eg. which vehicles are using the line), and so on…
While the pace of updates is slow, they do happen. It’s just that everyone has a different wishlist for what they want to see. Personally, I think that for now they should just focus on the really small fixes and shoot down a large number of bullet-points on the TODO-list. Also, I hope they fix all the small to medium issues before they go onto TF2. TF2 should be for big changes such as multiplayer, AI, boats, underground stations and proper U-Bahn networks, etc.
Also, bear in mind that the programmers and artists on UG are different people, so if UG were focused on exclusively fixing the game-issues, the artists would be twiddling their thumbs (and occasionally making a new UI-icon). Unless even more things in the game are to be made moddable, the artists could go ahead and make new vehicles, buildings, textures etc. and create an entire new DLC while the programmers sort the game out.