First off, I apologize if I'm a little bit late to the party; I've been thinking about this a bit trying to figure out what I want to say, even though I realize that I'm not much of anybody around here.
That being said:
TL;DR: FC, you are awesome on so many levels that it will take me a long wall of text to explain fully. In a nutshell, though, you have my support 100% regardless of what you decide to do.
Long post is long, so, spoiler'd:
So, being that I am not as hard-core a gamer as some here, I didn't even know that modding was a thing until I started playing MC. I'm not a programmer, and I'm not a particularly computer-savvy individual, so the comparatively simple install (MCPatcher->modloader->BtW) made it less daunting for me.
That and the content (ooo, windmills!) feeling like the low-tech, medieval atmosphere of vMC is what sold me on the mod, and I am very, very, very glad that this was the first mod I encountered and installed.
After playing it and being around the community, I have come to appreciate the little tweaks this mod makes to vanilla gameplay, as well as its overall design philosophy much, much more. BtW is truly 'more vanilla than vanilla.'
It is this mod that inspired me to explore automation and mob farms, learn redstone and logic (which apparently is getting fucked up in 1.5, sigh), and envision aesthetic design and building on a larger scale.
I have had so many thoughts and ideas stem from this mod that it has even inspired me to teach myself Java so that I can make an add-on myself in the future (actually, I don't know if this makes me 'inspired' or 'batshit insane'), and the fact that there are so many hooks built-in for add-on authors is nothing short of an amazing act of generosity on your part in taking the time to provide a functionality that is not really necessary to the gameplay but is there for the benefit of those who have the ability to make the tweaks to the game that they would like.
I have been learning how to texture, and studying the features of MCPatcher all so I can keep my preferred texture pack up-to-date with BtW.
I have gotten smarter over the past year or so, and have tried out a couple of other 'flavors' of Minecraft, but keep returning to BtW because of how well-designed it is, how internally consistent it is, and how well it integrates into vMC. BtW IS Minecraft, at least to me.
Which is why I would be disappointed if you left MC modding, as BtW->RTH still has so much untapped potential in it, and I really want to see what you come up with. Your departure would be a massive loss to the modding community, for sure.
It makes me truly sad that the situation has come to what it is, and even more so that the 'greater community' would even tolerate this kind of blatant entitlement. I mean, the texture pack forum is full of kids bleating about texture copyrights, but BWF is somehow OK? Whatever. It makes me wonder whether Mojang actually working on the extended IDs and API instead of witches and withers and fucking up redstone would have helped prevent this situation, but who can say?
However, that being said, I can totally empathize with your situation, having myself quit jobs where I was experiencing personality conflicts with other employees or being put in aggravating, stressful situations that destroyed any amount of enjoyment I got from doing the job, and those were jobs, not 'hobby' situations that are done purely for fun, so it would definitely be selfish and unreasonable for any of us to expect you to continue to 'fight the good fight' if it is detrimental to your creative drive and overall general well-being.
At any rate, I wish you the best of luck in deciding which direction you will ultimately take. I enjoy playing Minecraft and Better than Wolves, but the thought of an 'FC original' is quite intriguing as well.
Hopefully Kickstarter will be more sympathetic to my situation than PayPal whenever I've tried to kick you a little somethin'somethin' in the past. I am behind you 100%; you haven't steered us wrong as of yet.
In closing:
Thank you for spending the last year or so of your time to make something fun for me to play, and then giving it to me for free. Thank you so very much.
