yeh I agree that is a bit sad, but an announcement could help alot. The first mods release helped the mods hugely, I hope valve considers continuing all the support. Even if they made a seperate tab for mods, I would rather that then them not showing up.
you mean the game development community?
To be honest I see this as a good thing, it means EA is admitting defeat with their crappy "ea downloader" and they will soon be bowing to valve.