I am glad that you like this: hopefully, it will be a useful enhancement. (The voice in the videos is mine, with a little bit of compression and EQ to make it sound like an older recording).
Disabling the signalbox requirement is not readily possible as one particular type of signalling - absolute block - relies on signalboxes for the actual signalling logic (the distant signal shows clear when all following home signals controlled by the same box are also at clear). Pakset authors, however, if they are content not to use signals of the absolute block method, can allow signals to be placed without signalboxes by altering the signals' .dat files.
It is very difficult to predict the release date, as it is very difficult to predict: (1) how much time that it will take to implement any given feature; (2) how many bugs that there will be; (3) how long that it will take to fix each bug; and (4) how much free time that I will have. Each of those things can vary by orders of magnitude, so the overall possible timing can vary by orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude. My current plan is not to release after each new feature, but rather keep going with adding new features until I have finished the balance critical features, as, without proper price balancing, there is really only half a game. This may take a fair while, quite possibly well in excess of a year.
However, in the meantime, there have been people who have been playing with a self-compiled version of the code and pakset. This is not an easy option, as the code will constantly be changing, may be unstable, and there will be balance issues and incomplete features. However, people playing the game in this state are very useful to me in finding bugs that I do not have time to test for.
