I don't think Thamus intends to make shelves so you can put blocks on them, he intends to make shelves which already has stuff on it. That way, shelves would be proportionate to the room compared to the other blocks and not be as thick and large as the table (or in some cases thicker, depending on the shelf and table).
Which parts of the map would the introduction of dedicated shelves outdate anyway? Would it be the parts of the map that use stairs and slabs for shelves, carpets, or fence gates? ... or all of them? Do these different forms of shelves not outdate eachother, or at least makes the differences between projects larger than they need to be? Does the wide range of different types of shelves on the server not indicate the desire for a dedicated block for it? It's the same for the (amazing) block Thamus actually showed here; there is an even wider range of different styles to represent the overhangs on our server, which all portray the same thing as far as I am aware.
This applies to a lot of block suggestions that are brushed aside with "we need to be careful not to outdate the rest of the map". The rest of the map would look exactly the same after the introduction of a new block, newer projects would only look even better. Besides, we don't even need new blocks to outdate our projects. Locations which were considered amazing 5 years ago are now no longer regarded as such, because our style changes. In the time I've been working on Fairmarket I had to update the style twice to keep up with the current standard.
Maybe recreating the texture pack, or at least taking a long and proper look into what we want to portray and what types of blocks we would need for that, is exactly what we should do in order to stop outdating our map on a yearly basis.
