Well, there are other things that a new FRED should have built in. A script/tbl/tbm editor, for example. Way I envision it, you would start up FRED, and it would ask you what you want to do, a new mission, a new mission for a mod, or a new mod.
Doing a new mission would basically load the retail data (or whatever data is in the base directory) and continue as usual.
New mission for a mod would load that mod (using that mods mod.ini), and set the default load/save directories to that mods' missions directory.
New mod would Launch a Wizard that would allow you to basically define all the multimod stuff in the mod.ini.
TBL editing would only be enabled in the "New Mod" mode. Basically, you would click on the "TBL info" button in the ships editor (or weapons editor or whatever), you would then be able to make adjustments, and FRED would then automagically save the adjusted tbl as a tbm entry.
