To be quite honest Son Asid, unless you have experience coding a mod, and knowing how much work has to go into it, you don't really have any right to ask why it took so long when the "Mods" did it so much faster. Think about it, what do you think would take more time, making a mod? Or making a mod, of a mod. Maybe that question was too complicated, I'll put it like this, what would take more time, building a deck and painting it? Or re-painting a deck thats already built, there's your answer.
In my opinion, 1.3 won't take as long to come as 1.2 did because I don't think it will be too hard for Joe to implement new transformations. Just copy/paste, modify the code for the first transformation.
Probably the biggest part of 1.3 will be all the new models they'll have to pump out.
But then again you have to realize that these guys have a life as well. They're doing this mod for fun, and quite frankly, they could decide tomorrow to stop the mod, and there is nothing you could do about it.
So instead of patronizing the team with stupid questions like <i>why does it take so long?</i>, you could show a little more respect and be glad that such a talented group of individuals ever came together in the first place to create such a wonderful mod.