I'm not sure it's going to be a useful discussion to ask for a generic 'merge' with Rimponk. While Rimponk was a suitable mod for a niche interest for a while, Ponies of the Rim seems to hold a lot more polish. I feel it would be more productive to, if anything, request specific aspects of Rimponk you'd appreciate seeing in this mod, rather than a generic 'merge all aspects of these two (quite frankly very different) mods together'

Rimponk is a great mod and I love some ideas implemented in there, but I don't think it is ncessary to merge mods together. Both mods add new races, backstories, items, etc, so they can be considered their own art. At the moment there is another pony mod in development and I don't think it's worth it to merge with them either.
I'll contact Rimponk's developer for possible collaborations and idea sharing