Well, a quick reply to everything I have found out.
Fighting Steel is essentially a dead end. Those with older hardware for older games, and possibly those with ATI cards can still play the original game.
The "Retained" mode programming, dropped by Microsoft after DX7, completely dates the entire source code. It would have to be rewritten into a more modern API for any enhancements to be made. This also explains the incompatibility with Directx 8 and beyond.
The source code of the game cannot be accessed anyway, because NWS holds it by way of the defunct Divide by Zero publisher.
So, Fighting Steel stays in the past. Unless a group of motivated individuals wished to build a game from scratch, or modify a current product, there will not be another sim style WWII naval game. That's unfortunate for me, but judging by the lack of interest in this thread as of yet, maybe not such a big deal overall.
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