HU has been around for a long time, and has changed many times. The versioning number can be misleading, since after version 1.21 (about twenty revisions by Soulmancer, he mentioned he was getting bored of HU and wanted to move on), the versioning then went to v1.3, v1.4, etc. (Soulmancer had nothing to do with these). HU was initially designed to be a multiplayer mod, but Soulmancer went with community suggestions/requests, and developed a solo version and generally made Normal difficulty easier for newer players.
When I was away from the community (didn't even have decent Internet for a year) starting around 2010, I decided to work on my own version of HU (based on v1.3, I just wanted to change some fundamental things like scaling player defense/offense and increase the number of builds). Since I liked those changes, I offered my files and design document to some of the folks modding HU while I was away, and around 2015 PureRage mentioned that he was interested in incorporating them into v1.7.
One of the main benefits of having two versions of HU is that while one version is on the realm and being played and generating suggestions from players, the other version is down and being improved, fixed, or tested. This way HU could evolve in two directions. At the moment two possible directions are very tough bosses (HU became known for this) for the v1.6 and v1.8 (even versions) series, and tough trash (HU was known as relatively tough in general, especially the first few versions) for v1.7 and v1.9 (odd series). I don't know what directions will eventually be chosen, but those two sound reasonable. I think switching between the two varieties would be nice, since I get bored of things that don't change.
Since I haven't played v1.6 I don't know if it can be soloed. I understand that there's no "solo" version, since it's quite a lot of work to change the multiplayer version into a version with reduced damage for very skill and monster (I have a way to simplify this in the future, so solo versions should be easier to release). Last I remember, HU was pretty simple to solo in Norm as long as you were playing one of the stronger builds, built yourself to be tanky (collect gear specific to the next boss to overcome, get as much Vitality as possible, etc), and generally know the tricks to doing well in games like D2 (kiting bosses is a great strategy, etc). I once soloed the Ancients with a sorc in NM just by teleporting around while my A1 merc shot them. They died eventually, but I wouldn't call it a fun battle.
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(solo)