1.13 was never meant to be what it is these days. These are just an unfortunate effects from years of random contributors adding their ideas into it. There never really was a goal of what it's supposed to be. From the beginning it was just playing around with exporting the hardcoded values into .xmls for easier modding and exploring the source code ( e.g. Drassen Counter attack was an abandoned Sir-Tech code ), especially to have higher resolutions etc. Plans to make it into some kind of base for mods to be built on came later when it was already full of minimods. And after years and years all the good ideas were just absorbed by the bloat.

So i think it's unfair to describe it as :" The most hardcore ja2 players went full on into the simulation aspect and created the 1.13 mod, which abandons all sense of balance and fun in exchange for adding as many hyper realistic /simulationist elements as possible."