You know, creative people leave stuff unfinished and come back to it maybe weeks later, maybe years later, maybe never... As for the Nexus halls, the person who introduced them currently doesn't have much time, and besides he is a bit stuck regarding the halls: the quest doesn't quite fit together at the moment, it needs further ideas. As for rank II smithing, we need new textures for this, and the texturers are not active right now.