All this does is perpetuate the laziness of sticking to old versions. Just update and move on.
The problem is, this modpack relies on mods that are not being updated to versions further than 1.7.10, notably Enviromine. It isn't laziness, it's the inability to update at all.
Yes, but it doesn't really matter as forge only supports modding final versions of Minecraft above 1.7.10. At current, but you should do what I said in my last post after me saying update.