Great read. It's too bad modules are pretty much an afterthought in most langs.
I really like research language 1ML's approach to modules[0]. This allows monomorphic types to be treated like values, avoiding all of OCaml's module syntax (which can be a bit complex and verbose).
Is there a 'readable' code sample of how that would work?
Not much I don't think. This has a few examples:
https://github.com/rossberg/1ml
There isn't special module syntax. Modules are more-or-less just structs, and the structs can contain types.