It is good news and yes old news but Strydur takes his time to do things RIGHT, as he did with MHS v1 which is why that became the de-facto 'standard' for saber parts in this hobby.
Newcomers to the hobby may not understand the historical development behind MHS v1 but it was actually a BRILLIANT advance. At the time many perhaps most sabers were made with standard 1.5 or 1.25' plumbing 'sinktube' with whatever solution people could kludge to fit in a lighting solution, usually an EL wire or sheet blade and maybe a few first generation Luxeon LEDs. People might cut up bits of plastic tubing to fit inside the sinktubes to hold components but chassis as we now know them were a thing of the future, as was sound for the most part, and bladeholders, pommels etc were normally slip-fit and bolted together rather than threaded. Despite that some very nice looking sabers were built but creativity was limited by availability of materials and contruction methods.
Then MHS came along which made the brilliant deduction of putting a modular system of male threaded bladeholders and pommels and female threaded body parts. The sheer GENIUS of this is that MHS was made to fit exactly BETWEEN the INSIDE diameter of the 1.5" sinktube and the OUTSIDE diameter of the 1.25" sinktube that early hobbyists were already familiar with. So a v1 MHS saber could still use the 1.5" sinktube for "overlay" shrouds while its inside diameter could also use PVC conduit to make internal parts chassis, a still viable approach we've seen PERFECTED by Madcow. And when early soundboards and speakers were developed the space inside made fitting them much easier for early sabersmiths. The size of MHS v1 was thus not 'random' but cleverly chosen to bootstrap people's existing skills at the time and allowed the DIY side of this hobby to grow at a remarkable rate in a decade.
Now over the past couple years we've found smaller soundboards, smaller speakers, even smaller LEDs [though the stars they are usually mounted on haven't changed size, mostly] to use in sabersmithing so its an opportune time for TCSS to introduce a more compact MHS and its been in development for a while but the v1 MHS remains a perfect size for many builds and I for one hope TCSS will always support it while also moving forward into the new generation.
And I hope I never again hear newcomers who don't know or appreciate its history [not meaning anyone in this thread] say they think version 1 of MHS is "fat" - it is not, and the excellent development of MHS v2 doesn't and won't make it so.
BRAVO for MHS v2...and VIVA MHS v1!