Nah you don't understand, messing with the Stellar Forge would reset the entire galaxy, everything gone, the whole kit and kaboodle. You would have ship interiors that killed you every time you left your seat because there would be zero network coordination built into them so every time you changed direction half the ship would be in one place and half in another, 5300 ships that were essentially useless because the majority of players can't design a thing even though they think they are great, and millions of OP'd one shot kill weapons because many people think that's what makes great game play.
Don't get me wrong, I have played mods, Desert Combat was my favourite back in the dark ages, but that did take the equivalent of an actual dev studio to produce, most one off mods by individual players were, dare I say, rubbish and were only worthy of running for a few minutes on a private server just to test them! Oh yes, ED doesn't have private servers so all these mods would be out there causing mayhem. MMO's generally don't do player mods, and those that have tried are limited and next to useless for most players.
And even if 5300 out of 5384 are useless, it would still leave 84 useful new ships for players to fly and enjoy.
But I know too well what you mean. I like mods myself, looking at the Fallout or TES and X series, heaps out there, ranging from 1 shot weapons to god modes. Of course, those would have to be weeded out by FDev.
But what players could do is to submit mods to Fdev for review.
If approved, it gets added to the game. DLC or just content update.
Ship interiors designed by players, for players!
New aliens, not just genitalia shaped ones.
New paint jobs! Actually good ones, ones players would want to buy.
Weapons... maybe not...
New ships?
Hand crafted missions, not just cookie cutter ones with new numbers.
Ship wrecks to explore. Abandoned cities or lost civilizations.
The player base would be happy to contribute, all FDev had to do is to kick back and watch the players create stuff, things they have not been able to do until now. All they'd have to do is open that door, and see what comes through.