When I said that I wasn't implying no one else had the skills necessary -- just the ones with access are busy.
Also, I didn't even have access to any files or make direct changes to anything for any of the things I've modified (I modified them for other reasons and shared them with Larva) Honestly, it was me telling him to what to write in which place in the source over gtalk... a horrible method, and quite error prone, but it is what has been done...
The tethealla source is available publicly at http://www.pioneer2.net -- If you make a change you'd like implemented in ultima, if you send the changes to Larva I'm sure he'd be willing to implement it. The thing about getting the current ultima source is it has things in it that somebody*cough* is after and is offering money to people for it, so I don't think Larva would share it with anyone unless they've proven themselves competent and loyal. (Ultimately it is Larva's decision)
The ???? bug is in the original tethealla version as well. As for reproducing it, no one really knows just how to do so. (which is why it hasn't been fixed)
EDIT: I'm pretty sure the drop table script is perfectly fine. chuk moved the page, and I guess lots of people didn't know it was moved, so it was said to be broken.