Well, I suppose my problem is actually not knowing how to change the fonts.
But I read elsewhere on EQ2Interface, a developer mentioned that when we run a localized version of EQ2, the fonts get swapped automatically. I am running a localized version (Chinese Traditional), and all other UI elements display perfectly in Chinese. So I thought the default font should be fine.
Please could someone point me to a file in the EQ2MAP mod to change the fonts? I'll try to read up on the fonts.
As for the updates overwriting changes...that isn't much of a problem at all. I am a translater and have participated in a few software localizing projects. With the tools I have (unfortunately requiring a license), I can specify to extract all the Tooltip elements from the XML, translate and store in a databse, then stick them back into the XML. When an update comes in, I just have to extract the new version and apply the database to it, then translate those new and modified segments. (Computer Aided Translation, with Translation Memory database.)
Of course if you're familiar with the open source tool gettext, you could very much accomplish the exact same thing and it costs absolutely nothing. You'd have to learn to use it, though. (And any other tools to support it. I'm not that familiar with open source supported l10n procedures, but such things are being done all the time.)