I dont think that Michelangelo would care much if they changed Jesus in the last supper,he'd probably even laugh a bit
...but Leonardo would sure throw a fit and raise hell once he sees what happened to his mural XD...
Well anyway true that you cant change something great and make it better than what the developers wanted (i think fine art is totally different beast)...but there are people that can create great things given the chance and the tools. i go back to half life, and that little known (cough) mod Counter Strike (cough)..It has actually been counterstrike that has kept that engine alive, there are still some other great mods being made for the game...and tons more that are being made for the next game, there are lots of mod teams getting ready for the release of the HL2 sdk.
But im talking fromt the point of view of a ffxi player. i suppose queare doent really want anyone to mess with their original games...but moding some parts of the game can keep players interewsted in it for a bit longer.
i know there not gonna support anyone who wants to add new areas and mobs and item and such, but changing the existing ones look is good enough for me.
oh and that extrator is the model viewer. it does allow you to export the game models to metaseq format with no anims.