Hi Yankee4Life,
Alright, thank you for the pointers and the link to the roster database. I will definitely install them.
As for the models.big, I have not modified it any way, I read previous recommendations of extracting the files from the MVP12 mod to a folder and manually replacing the folders and files. So I replaced one folder, tested whether the game worked and replaced the next one, so on and so forth. The models.big file was in the data folder and when I replaced it, the game crashed, and when I replaced it back with the original one, the game worked. So I thought there was something amiss there.
EDIT: those are the two files I seem to have hard time in working together. If I replace models.big and the roster files with the original, vanilla ones the game works flawlessly, even with the rest of the MVP12 mod installed. Perhaps I need to find a new models.big file or something to test the game with. I will report back if there is any progress..
EDIT 2: I've managed to get myself a Win XP copy and managed it to dual boot with Win 7. It was worth it because on Win XP, the mod installs without problem, and although there is an error in installing the two patches with TiT, the game just works. I didn't do anything different from my first futile attempts on Win 7, but I am feeling it has to do with how the game itself loads on different media such as solid state disks rather than hard drives, or how the file system in Win 7 differs from XP. Here's hoping I won't encounter any more serious problem..