LoL. Didn't want to be completely spoon fed quite to that level, but just a little help for a beginner. Not the easiest thing to get into...
Maybe it's not the worst thing ever to have something like that. Not intended to make it easier for people to create their re-skinned mods, but instead to make it easier for them to see how it works.
I can't be the only one that would like to have a class like that, create my item, see how it works in game (the proper way without creating lag), edit the code, see how my changes affected it, have the inevitable "Aha!!!" moment, and then create own class that in my mind is better. Quite surprised this doesn't exist to be honest.
Sure you can make the argument of "why not just do that level of experimentation with existing mods" and the simple answer is that they are quite cluttered and its easy to get lost in all the existing mod integrations etc.