Funny, I have Win2k pro too and SlotModder works fine. I wonder how anyone can do their models without it?
I once edited one ship directly from the txt file. I just changed few firing arcs and added two weapon slots more. It took an hour and gave me a headache.
My current programming skills are so bad that I cannot help creating new modding tools but I'm studing information technology so in the future I might be able to help.
I could use some graphical system editor which would make the planet placements easier. nothing fancy. Just something that shows the coordinates in the cursor's locations. I realize this can be done with any image processing program but still somekind of system editor would be nice. I guess it could use the same program hull as the slotmodder.