You can’t call heavily modded plugY experience ‘D2: LoD’ imo. D2R is definitely an improvement over the D2:LoD unmodded base game.
I would argue its better than any modded version because of the graphics alone, and I am generally a ‘gameplay over graphics’ guy.
I played Project D2 with full resolution and AI-stretched pixel shaders, but it just can’t compare with modern graphical fidelity of D2:R. It’s so much nicer to play.