I also optimized them, halving their filesizes, I'll do this for all my textures from now on.
Cool. Basically, this is how it works: If a texture changes its dimensions, a mapper has to go into every map file where it is used and modify it the size appropriately. Personally, whether or not I do this depends on a) whether I think the way the texture is used could really benefit from a higher-res texture and b) whether or not the texture we have as a replacement includes details of a high enough quality to merit the extra work. Others may have their own criteria. This is just me personally, where I want to put in my time and effort.
For instance, with your kitchen work, I just reduced the resolution and slotted them in (the high res are still in our data_source if someone wants to use them in the future). But with these metal textures, I'll add them as 512x512 and change all the maps because there is lots of great rusty detail in there and because I think they're textures that will be used more and more in the future. I'll almost never add a texture higher than 512x512, unless it's got a very specific role that warrants it, but we can keep higher res in our data_source for the future.
For the fourth texture I included a version with a pole(like the original) and one without so you can decide which works better, I noticed that the pole version wasn't very widely used, I thought maybe a non-pole version might get more use. In any case, Its all in the metal pack on OGA.
I can add both so this is good. Textures that work in a set with different variations are always useful for mappers.
The list of unknowns seems to have grown since I first looked at it, we were at 211 and then we remove a few and now we are at 217, is this one of those never ending projects? 
It can be confusing because the licenses information is generated for every folder in our repository, so you might get pointed to one folder or another at different times (Bayo pointed to all unknown licenses, but this included models, skins, particle textures, etc.).
The one I keep my eye on and that is most relavent to this thread is
here. It shows all license information for files under /base/textures/, which is where our map textures sit and where the bulk of unknown licensed content is. If you look at the bottom, we're concerned about the textures marked UNKNOWN in red (currently 166). And if you look at the graph on the right on that page, you'll see that the Unknowns have dropped from about 220 a while ago, so we're definitely making progress.
