I know some other plugins are capable of doing stuff in the discord without the need for the discord extension (which is nothing but trouble really)

There are plugins that post all ingame server chat in discord, arkan has anti-cheat functionality in the discord, there are poundbot raid alerts, all of these do not rquire the discord extension.

I really like rustcord and what it can do and how simple it is, but I do not really like the discord extension because it is timing out all the time and having extensions is also much more taxing for the server than having plugins. So could this plugin be rewritten to be stand-alone and maybe only use webhooks and so?

Those plugins that do that are simply using webhooks and the same code across each plugin, duplicating the amount of code and resources necessary to handle Discord integration by not sharing a standard gateway.

I can agree on @Goldie

The plugin is way too big to properly run. Errors are pooping out time to time and we have even to relead the discord status because it screws with rustcord. I'm even considering it to fully remove it. As i did with Dangerous Treasures event, i installed a clean install and setup the rustcord. After that, i tested ping and several other aspects with my hosting company and they say the same that rustcord is being a way too big to properly run. 

There is a difference between the usage of rustcord or not. With rustcord, i have a whopping 40 ping from home. Without it, it lowers to just 25 pings and that's something to be disturbed at. If a server owner uses this plugin and a load of other plugins, the server could even eventually lag. 

my suggestion is to potentially split the plugin and let it be handled like the magic panel. Giving the users the ability to choose what they want as an addon and what not. This could be a solution.

its what your choices will be for the owner of the plugin as for @wulff ( lawl, can't even tag Wulff anymore these days. )