Sadly, this has never been answered officially, yes.
After some research we did with Swyter, and writing numerous PMs to TaleWorlds staff, there has been a silent triumph, however. The TaleWolds website was updated with the 'Enhanced Edition'. This is the direct link to it:
http://download.taleworlds.com/mountandblade_1011_setup_enhanced.exe
This is the most up to date file.
EDIT:
There seems to be a problem with the file on the TaleWorlds Server. It can still be found and downloaded from here:
http://www.mbrepository.com/file.php?id=2595
The Module System is also still unavailable from the official TaleWorlds download link. It can be found on the Repository as well.
I think it is more or less safe to say that official support for the original Mount and Blade has been abandoned.