ah, regarding things like crowdfx & syflex, or "the more comprehensive prebuilt ICE nodes", i think that's all very dependent on what people use ICE for. you have a lot of flexibility there. i've never used the syflex stuff beyond base setups, but i've never really done must cloth sim stuff recently. i do rigging and some crowd related things, so i've used some crowdfx, and cobbled bits of it that i liked together with other things, and lots of deformation related things for rigs and so forth.
private compounds like the syflex nodes may have a lot of production value for people that do cloth sims, but crowdfx, for instance, whether it has production value or not (i have, myself, used it in production), it's a valuable learning tool for anyone curious about an approach to crowd simulation, or even how geometry duplication works, etc. so, if nothing else, it's a great example file, and the value of that is huge. (there are a many such compound nodes that i don't think i'd want gotten rid of even if i've never used them, because someday i may learn something from just deconstructing one). hth
