Psalm

am I the only one who didn't understand jarno's answer?

Whahahaha... you probably should learn how to quote. See, who is this "jarno" ?
But to give a little more to the answer of the question 10, there is a little more than just balance that's taken into consideration with the smiting category of mods. The Item Upgrade is more tested than the others... if you want to go off the books and make your own install go a head... but the BWP's goal was to standardize the stable and unstable(eXpert mode) install orders so the second can try to become the first.
The fact that the Watcher's Keep items are tied to this is actually partially mod tied*. Install the SCS Watcher keep component and you won't need the BG2's Tweak packs tweak. Unless you install the Item Randomizer... there's a rabbit hole the size of a world here, if we keep on digging.

 
See the part in bold is what I was looking for in relation to the pdf guide:  a reason why a certain mod/component is not installed (be it detailed or simple or gives one a clue to investigate further).  The guide is an excellent resource for customized installs, and the more you know, the less likely you'll compromise your install. The guide is generally very good at this except for a few exceptions like the ones on p.7.  
 
But I appreciate that despite the   tremendous progress   made since the the BWP began, it is still a work in progress.  And not to be snarky, but why wasn't the part in bold included in the pdf guide?
 
 

Which is why I didn't answer the rest of these:

would appreciate any further input if you're so inclined, especially for questions 5, 7, 8, 10a, 11b, 14a, 15 & 15a.

*Tied by the facts that the dialog, scripting and received items need to be consistent with the mods that are installed throughout ...

 
I don't understand this part.  There must be viable reasons why a certain mod/component is not installed, even if the reason given is "we are testing things for now," or "for better mega mod stability."  Then the reader would not need to wonder why and needlessly bother helpful forumites like you.  If you or anyone else has the answers, shouldn't they be put into the pdf guide for future players?
 

10) BG2 Tweak Pack v14 {p224} ...
---   a) Component 1220 "Allow Cromwell to Upgrade Watcher's Keep Items" is also set to NOT INSTALL but no reason is given.  Is this a balance issue?  What are the drawbacks to installing this component?

There's the Item Upgrade mod, that has like a few dozen added items... the best part is that it has been updated to allow the use of the mod contained items... that this mod quite surely doesn't.

Thanks Jarno.

IU's readme doesn't say if it upgrades WK items or not (only mentions that you could use the demon heart found in WK) but to me it seems that IU doesn't upgrade WK items (but I could be wrong since I've never played WK & there were some items listed in the readme I didn't recognize).  

And even if IU upgrades WK items, since it was one of the first mods around and BG2 Tweak Pack is excellently maintained, I doubt there's an incompatibilty between IU & BG2 Tweak Pack's component.  That's why I suspected it was due to balance issues as the BG2TP's readme indicates.  I also should have wrote "What are the [other] drawbacks to installing this component." 
 
Here is the relevant part:

I'll do further digging in the mods' relevant forums (on top of the ton of reading I still have to do   ).

The other reasons for the choices is that their popularity, not because "we" want to restrict things, but because there's a lot more test made with the standard components than with all the other choices. I know a few of these things, and some times reread the .tp2 files to make sure... but still there's a lot of unknown things to me. And I have read these forums consistently some 5-7 years.

 
I truly appreciate the monumental work done by BWP (and the difficulties and the unkown territory it explores) but every little bit of info helps, hence my questions.  Even if the reason given why a certain mod/component is or is not installed is "Testing Compatibility."  But 14.2 will soon be released, so I'll wait to see if things have changed.

@ Psalm

Thanks that you point me to these discrepancies. I will investigate them once BWPv14.2 is released (in a few days I hope).

Happy to help, Leonardo.  Thank you so much for this great resource and all the hard work you (& the BWP team) do.

I've read the BWP 14.1 Guide and I have a few questions (please do bear with me here   ):

The .pdf file has a lot of things that you can customize when you use the BWS that has a full customization(~2^5000), unlike the BWInstall.bat approach that has a set parameters set to each mod according to the install mode(5). The BWS development really speeded up after the v14.1.pdf file was made, so the latest things have changed a lotSSSS.
The guide is good as a reference model for the few particular things, but as an install component chooser, less so.

Example;

6) Zyraen's Miscellany v2.0 {p199-200} - why is this an expert mod? The 4 (& only) components that BWP 14.1 has selected to install seem like good/useful fixes:
--- a) 1 "Improved Statue of Riddles"
--- b) 17 "Expanded Spell Progressions for Rangers"
--- c) 18 "Expanded Spell Progressions for Bards"
--- d) 19 "Expanded Spell Progression for Paladins"

These can all be found else where. The 17-19 are a .2da file tweaks that are inappropriate when you combine them with a 50th level rule sets that are in a lots of mods, they make the player loose all their spells when they level up to level 41.

 

Thanks Jarno.   I was planning to use the BWS for my install, but I thought it was based on the BWP Guide, so I wanted to understand the rationale behind some of the component selections of BWP 14.1.  My next move is to fully explore BWS to see how it works.

I would appreciate any further input if you're so inclined, especially for questions 5, 7, 8, 10a, 11b, 14a, 15 & 15a.