I understood that visual and graphics mods are tolerated. In fact someone opened a discussion on Steam about this same topic. But this is probably the right forum to talk about it.
I think openly encouraging visual and graphics mods through Steam Workshop would be a great place where these types of mods could be discussed, published and even downloaded, since they are for free.
Maybe the workshop can start with simple reskins of items. But if official modding tools are provided, I am sure modders could create models that could be introduced into the game.
As long as the devs lays down the rules which things could be modded, it would be great to have an official Generation Zero Steam Workshop.