Yes. I just joined this forum, and I'm fully aware that the answer to my question is probably blindingly simple, but I could not find the answer in generic online FAQs.

How could I make available ALL of the skins and meshes that appear in Freedom Force, so that I can either edit them or simply make custom characters from them? The game already makes its custom heroes readily available via folders, and most standard heroes and villains (Minuteman, Nuclear Winter, etc.) can be easily modified without patches or anything (though I don't find them in the folders like the custom characters)... but I would like to modify a Police Officer, or O'Conner, or Mr. Mechanical's giant robot suit. These files are in the game somewhere; is there a simple way to access them?

Much thanks!

heheh,  actually its simple,  but not blindingly simple.
if you look in the data folder you'll see files called art.ff sound.ff etc.   these are basically zip files,  so if you have 7zip you can open them up directly.  or you could make a copy of the file and rename it art.zip instead of art.ff :)

Hurrah! Again, you have my thanks!