A good question. And it makes me realize that I should clarify something in the original post. It isn't required to use Cabbit's bases for creating sprites. That's just a personal choice that I went with because I was replacing many of the sprites myself. There have already been additions that are from a completely different source. One example is this old man sprite.

As to why I went with Cabbit's sprites & bases. Now that you've really made me think about it, I can narrow it down to this:

1. The fact that her bases are licensed under CC0 was very appealing to me. Not that I don't want to credit her. I just like the idea of being able to create derivatives without the need for a long attribution chain.
2. The drawing style reminded me somewhat of the current sprite bases in the game (but taller).
3. The format that her sets are in are the same as Stendhal's. Top row: North-facing. 2nd row: East-facing. 3rd row: South facing. 4th row: West facing.
4. Cabbit & diamonddmgirl both had some finished sets that could be used as replacements, or the outfits, hair, etc. could be used.

I agree with you about the resizing & losing quality. I would prefer crisper, cleaner images. And actually, when I first played Stendhal, I was almost turned off to it because I didn't like the look of the sprites. While the project does list specifications for creating assets, there aren't many active contributors. And I think there is pressure to get the assets replaced quickly or we may not be able to have a new release anytime soon. So we're not as worried about perfection (at least, that's how I feel about it). Touch-ups can always be done later.

I wasn't very active during the most recent release, but they got by using a placeholder image for sprites that had been removed. But the number of deleted images has probably more than doubled since then. And if we have a game where players, characters, & enemies all look like a bunch of floating sparkles, it will have an impact on gameplay quality (in my opinion) & players will lose interest.

So, with the urgency to replace the assets, & the fact that it was done with the previous sprite sets, scaling them for quick, dirty fixes is accepted. Personally, I'm not a fan of the scale2x look. But, it does make things quick & easy. And it does look better than other scaling methods.

I'd like to take Cabbit's bases, scale them, then clean them up to post here on OpenGameArt. I just haven't had much opportunity to do a lot of sprite work over the past few weeks.

About using the LPC resources, I actually suggested to the project developers a few years ago to switch to sprites based on them. But, it would have been a huge task with the limited number of members & there wasn't pressure to replace what we already had. So it just wasn't a priority at the time.

One of the main reasons I didn't go with LPC this round, I think, was that I thought those resources were more commonly used. I thought Cabbit's sprites would feel more unique. But it was also a question of amount of time spent on editing the sprites. Because the LPC sprites were arranged differently, I felt I would end up spending more time on re-ording the images.

I actually wish that I could have used more of the LPC farm animals. But by the time I got to it, those assets were already being worked on (or completed) by someond else. I did use your horses though.

If anyone does decide to use Cabbit's bases, it's not required of you to scale the images. If you just want to submit/upload the 24x32 spritesheets, I can scale them myself. But again, it's not required to use a specific source. Just as long as it looks decent in the game.