The only thing I worry about is that some users will get confused. I've heard several people mention that they will only be installing plugins from now on, and with these definitions, a lot of hacks using installer scripts will be excluded from that category.

Since you guys apparently think FTP access is a big hurdle to overcome, we need an installer system. The problem is, it needs to be made by Jelsoft. Having an offical installer will bypass the problem of having to install an extra hack to use the hack you want.

And given that they don't support modifications, the chances of that happening are small, Id say :p

Well, no, the entire plugin system indicates that they support the existance of modifications, what they don't support are individual modifications or boards with active modifications. Providing official mechanisms for bulk query execution and bulk template and phrase addition do nothing to change their stance on any of these, nor would providing a system that would support uploading a single XML file that contained several of these and handling them all appropriately.

As far as uploading additional php scripts and images or running actual install scripts that are more than just a bunch of calls to $DB->query_write, I don't think that will or should happen.

It is not really necessary to have an "install backend" (be it official or a custom Hack) to provide easy installation without having upload an installer.
Everything can be done with just the Plugin XML File, but creating such a XML manually is a PITA ...

True, however xml files are easily generated by other files.

If vB had a plug-in pluginer that read the contents of an xml file, installed phrases and templates (even better if it would run queries too - however I could understand reluctance toward that) then a mack could easily be created that would allow you to store your mack in development in tables, and export the mack as an xml file to be read by the vB plugin pluginer.

hmm. Just think I lost myself there :)

Could someone create a plugin that could parse this into readable text. :D

man alive. I must cut down on the crack for lunch :)

Here is how I figured it could work:

vB has a mack installer.
The installer would deal with new phrases, phrasegroups, plugin code, templates and optionally running queries.
Macks would then come with as an XML file listing all of these things.
vB could cache the xml file for later removal if needed.

The real butt pain as was previously mentioned is that complex XML files are a bummer to create.

That is until a mack maker is released.
The mack maker would simply be an admincp page that would:
Allow you to create a 'project'
Define the phrasegroups and phrases
Define the templates
Define the plugin code
Optionally define DB queries
It could then persist these into a table(s), click 'generate' and viola! It could create the xml for you.
A mack maker wouldnt be too hard to make and I am sure the community would take care of that in no time. However that would be dependant on vB creating an installer that at least handled more than just doing the plug in code.

Whew.

@The Geek
My Advanced Plugin Manager (currently under heavy development) does all that :D
It creates XMLs that can contain Phrases, Settings, Templates, Queries/Install-Code - and to install these it requires nothing except a vanilla vBulletin 3.5
However, if the User has installed APM he gets some extra Goodies like Grouping of Plugins, setting Execution-Order, Descriptions, etc.

looks groovy to me.

Uh... try not to go too off-topic here. :)