Difference between a skinner and reskinner is a skinner requires max so he can attach the skin and manipulate to the model. DE does have one, our dear Amaunet, Hicks wife. Then again she's pack cause she has two mods needing her talents ^_^. Aosw has 2 erie and wildcat. LoW 1 elron but he's also their main modeler and rigger so it suffers for them there. IA II has swgbex, and 2 other skinners I believe. Few other mods out there that have them. In general community suffers because of lack of good texture artists.
Roskov, 1upd, dfeeds, are all reskinners. They don't have max and don't like to create skins from scratch.
A skinner doesn't really need Max, a skinner just needs a proper UV and labels I feel. A friend didn't have Max yet he managed to still skin some models.
True enough, yet some people like roskov don't work like that ;)