Jitspoe, I hear ya man.
I believe I made the revy changes, but as you said, game models (those not map added, that is) would take more thought and work, especially using the LOD system you had mentioned a looooong time ago.
Advice to modelers: Don't bother with guns, hoppers, etc... right now till Jitspoe turns his focus towards that area. Your models will end up sitting for a long time. If you feel compelled to model, do it for map included models that, like Jitspoe said, are beyond what can be made in the map editor itself, and that don't require/desire LODs of the model. Anything LOD inclusive could be a waste of time, or sit for a long time waiting on Jitspoe to get his priorities straight, quit work, and go DP2 full-time..
At just over 100 polygons I think that van is pretty good! It was built ultra low on purpose. LODs, starting with the current version as the low-poly version is completely doable. There has to be a LOD system in place first though. I would actually probably start over though. I have a method I've experimented with where the higher poly version is made and unwrapped first, then subsequent lower poly versions are unwrapped to match the layout of the higher poly version. This leaves all LODs using the same skin. Works good if its planned to work it from that angle from the start.
I'm on vacation right now so it will be another week and a half before i'm near any modeling tools.
I use 3D Studio Max 7.
I know i know it's old, but I haven't bothered to upgrade. We have the disks, just haven't gotten to it.