Dave Haefnir

If you want something a little bigger than the metal mini... Look for "Dougram Bigfoot" and "Robotech Ziyon" in your favorite search engine... There are plastic models out there, one that's 1/72 scale (about 8" tall) of your classic Battlemaster... One of the advantages of the "Unseen" is that you can enjoy other folk's merchandizing...

I agree with the 1st Person View only for combat... But I also would love to see (snapshot) my mech from the outside on the field, especially once we can customize our paint... Let me throw out these for possible compromises...

A view toggle that goes from "Cockpit' to "Front 3/4 View Left" to "Front 3/4 View Right" back to "Cockpit"... You wouldn't be able to see ahead or directly behind and your mech would occupy most of the field of view so this 3rd Person View wouldn't be tactically useful and of course controls would be locked while doing this...

The other idea would be the same views above, but hitting the toggle just saves to the game directory on your hard drive as "SnapshotL.jpg" and "SnapshotR.jpg"... Or something similar... Since this would happen while in combat, you might capture some awesome action shots.

A battle recorder would be great but I worry about the DEV effort better spent elsewhere and the potential drag on performance. These ideas would be simple and lean. I am a hardcore Simmer... but I love the visuals in this game and want to appreciate and share them...
Merit?

Put me firmly in the Purist camp... I got my first Battletech box set just when the miniatures were still on carded blisterpacks that said Battledroids. We've got hundreds, if not a thousand, canon mechs to draw from and even an established timeline to release them in to keep the flow fresh. Same with weapons. I'll grant you some of those designs are turkeys. I like the creative direction so far of the mech visuals. They are bringing the franchise up to date. I don't have to be a slave to the Tech References or the metal minitures on that (refer back to my previous "turkeys" comment and even a turkey could become a favorite with an updated look). That creative license on the visuals is about as far as I am ready to go and I am putting my trust in the team... so far. Finally, I understand the compromises to the rulebooks necessary in the Mechlab that give us "hardpoints" and I can fully support that. Weapon beams, bullets, and missiles need to be visually coming from ports that approximate what and where they are... No sympathy for someone who wants to "boat" their mech with say small lasers coming from the mech's toes just because there were empty slots.
Ok, getting down off my soapbox before it gets so high the fall would kill me...