Just saw some comments on the xEdit Discord this morning from ElminsterAU, the primary dev for the project. He's been backwards-engineering Starfield since it came out, tweaking his project to make it work for Starfield. This is important because, as soon as he does, (safe) plugin-based mods become possible, opening up the floodgates for a whole new class of Starfield mods. Only, in its current state, he's not sure he can make it work. Or, for that matter, that the CK due from BGS "early next year" can make it work, either.
The image I've posted is a collection of carefully selected snippets of a much larger discussion, with all the supporting info being excluded for brevity. This is "headline reporting" at its worst, so I encourage anyone tracking this topic to go to the Discord and dive deeper.
Maybe he's having a bad morning after spending all night attempting to decipher undocumented code that is, literally, legacy built upon legacy built upon even older legacy. But if it's really this bad, then the modding scene for Starfield is going to have a much harder time getting started than is currently being anticipated.
We will never get another Skyrim again it's pretty clear. Breaks my heart but that's just the reality. I wish there were other studios making games like the BGS sandboxes like how other studios are making soulslikes now. They need direct competition.