No need to apologize! And sorry to hear about your harsh personal circumstances.
CustomModOptions.xml has a good number of outdated options, we've been cleaning up that file. Not certain about the one you refer to, but it looks like a table that is either integrated into VP or is only used by modmods, so you don't need to worry about it.
VP is currently lacking in comprehensive documentation. It would be nice to have one day but it's a monumental task.
VP is still in active development. The next release has been delayed because of IRL delays and because we've been working on a major trimming down of files.
As a rule, we don't update the mod for compatibility with other mods - we update VP and other mods can update if they want to be compatible. Attempting to be compatible with every other mod and modmod would be a difficult task indeed.