Alright, I'm back, out of lurking (and with enough hard-drive space to actually store FS2 AND something else on it)...
While exploring the depths of my FS2 mod folders, I noticed a lot of them are in raw format - folders and files, and after some time it becomes a REAL pain to exchange. I know FS2-Open has mod folder support, but as I didn't know it'd create trouble, my FS2 folder has a space in its name (which the launcher claims might cause problems). To fight that, I need a VP-pack creator to organize all that (and possibly distribute my own mods in, once I finally figure out how to do something useful with either TBL files or FRED2 itself).
I already have one program like that (FSMM, FreeSpace Mod Manager), but I can't figure out how to use it for love or money (no readme file was included).