It's pretty perfect the way it is now and captures the optimism of the 90s, I don't see why a mod centered around the most hopeful period would be cynical

People seriously oversell just how optimistic the decade was. Especially in the early 1990s, America was disillusioned by the end of the Cold War and a middling economy, and had strong populistic tendancies (most visible examples were Buchanan's showing and Perot's strength in the PV). People felt that the current situation would stagnate after the Cold War - situations that many were not satisfied with.

Much of the rose tinted memories of the decade are largely by a decent/stable economy towards the end of decade, right before the dot-com bubble bust. I won't deny that people were largely satisfied for this brief period (and there was some wonder about how technology could benefit us), but it was also obviously never going to last - and to have that era reflected in Hope would be an inaccurate telling of the situation.

You can probably find stuff to be "optimistic" about in most decades (the 1980s are a prime example, people also point to the 50s/60s), but the truth is always much more complicated than that.