id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan talking about the mod loading problems crt brought up (story), DLL's, and mod auto downloading. Here it is:

We will be releasing a point release within a week that addresses the fs_game problem that exists in the current executable. This problem forces clients to start with the same fs_game parameter as the server. It does not affect normal game play but keeps the server from specifying which "game" directory to use. This is a bug. Mod authors do not have to wait for the fs_game patch to get started as the code will be the same either way on their end. There are two other basic issues for mods that have come up: 1. DLL use for mods Our position on DLL use for mods is that it is a bad thing. DLL's are not multi-os compatible and they pose a much greater security risk than qvm's. Note, I did not say that qvm's are totally secure, they are not, but they are definately more secure than DLL's. DLL's are for debugging only and qvm's are the only official supported way to produce and distribute a mod. Period. 2. Auto-downloading We are currently exploring several options for auto-downloading. There will support at some level for mod surfing and downloading. This support is geared towards the "mod" type of add-on as opposed to downloading maps or models ( or skins ). The goal is to not consume server bandwidth for downloads but push the bandwidth use to some sort of a dedicated "mod" server or something.