We need "caveman-level" modding tools.
What do you mean?
An avatar import tool like VRChat, just for NPCs?
Either you would have to set clear guidelines and only this way and that only works, that would only limit the possibilities again.
Especially with NPCs, you currently have to assemble it in Unity (bones, mesh, animator, Colleider), then you can control the whole thing via the plugin API, from scratch. How, when and where the object moves, what animator status it gets.
And then comes the problem of designing this animator so that everyone is happy.
I'm just trying to do it myself, smaller things can be done but they still have to be tailored precisely.
Maybe later, much later, there will be a more direct way to insert your own NPCs, if you can then fall back on the game's own animators, e.g. trade: if you have a dealer who already shakes his hands a lot and maybe already has things off the shelves If you get a cabinet, you would just have to adjust the bones and the mesh and then control it like all the game's own NPCs later
Simplifications are slowly building up, that's why I have the Project ToolsAPI, this is where all the "tricky" things you could use when developing plugins are created.
Currently I can only offer a GUI variant to generate windows and lists more quickly or a simple button that handles its own event and a timer label that shows you a cownt down and at the end triggers an event that can be stopped, started and reset.
Or placing GameObjects, like with the ModelLoader, can be used by others.
Unfortunately I can't keep up with the documentation, but there is an answer if you ask