Yeah, the mod that died and spewed its assets was MT. BWO is caught in MOD DRAMA (the best type of drama).
Well, you see, the statement that it was "ready for release" years ago was pretty much because FSO back then didn't catch modpack errors anywhere near as well as it does now. There were apparently a fair number of bugs, which needed to be fixed too before its really playable. Apparently the old models weren't bug-free either, so instead of fixing up old outdated models why not make new ones, since we're partway through that anyway.
Or so the line of thought goes.
I have no idea why BWO is archived. There are "active" projects with far less activity on the internal. Namely AG and WoD. AG is headless, and WoD hasn't had a post in internal since a month ago, and the last post before that one were from the beginning of November (though it definitely is progressing, just that everyone discusses stuff on IRC instead of on the forums). Clearly, that was not the reason why BWO was archived.
From what I can gather at scouring internal threads there's some drama going on between Goober, Admiral Nelson, and BlackDove over who "owns" the mod and such. "Creative differences" or so to speak.
Actually, I better shut up cause I have no idea what is going on despite having complete internal access.
Why am I even talking.