Very interesting anecdote and eye-candy, thanks for sharing. The futuristic vehicle design also reminds me of Katsuhiro Otomo's brilliant Akira artwork.
The Hard Ops add-on is one of those Blender things I still need to check out. I've seen some pretty impressive videos by Jerry (a.k.a. MasterXeon) demonstrating it.
And I completely know what you mean regarding MoI being easy to pick up again after you haven't used it for a while. That's one of its great strengths.
