When I bought the game a long time ago I was discouraged to play by how bad the port apparently was and from what people said at the time it seemed not a fun experience to play the game.

How much better can mods make this port now?
What are the issues with this port mods still can't fix?

It sounds really exciting, especially because it seems that you can save and quit your game, edit stat values / abilities and then load your save with the changes being implemented which means you can just change everyone's build on the fly (at least whenever you can save).

Can you turn a node that previously added stats into one that instead adds an ability or vice versa?

It's been like a decade since I last placed FFXIII, you can tell the ai to not use certain abilities right? And without having to unlock it first with drops like having to find certain gambit triggers / actions in FFXII right?

I remember finding the characters well balanced when I played so I dunno what changes make sense aside from the first 5-6 chapters being dull and the first Cid boss annihilating me multiple times even though I had maxed out the Crystarium at the time.
Especially because the mod mentions that most unique abilities will not work on other characters.

What about passives / stronger versions of common abilities like e.g. iirc Vanille? as synergist raised stats higher than anyone else but Hope had some other great synergist abilities, would it e.g. be possible to make the perfect synergist (or any other role for that matter) by giving one character the best abilities for that role as long as these are not unique active skills?

I just saw that *finally* there are some FFXIII mods, I got this on steam forever ago and forever there were virtually no meaningful mods but seems like now not only crucial performance fixes but even cool other mods exist.

Which are the best mods for FFXIII (besides Crystarium Mod)?