Visually it can be very nice, you've proven that. However, the biggest difference is level design here, not visually. It's kinda unfair to compare anything to Doom3, but I do get your point. The Sauerbraten engine screenshot looks great, but I honestly think that using the exact same design, similar textures and perhaps even a similar shader for the water it would be quite possible to get visually the same results. Yes, 3d gamestudio isn't really fast, so it'll mean less fps for sure, but I wouldn't jump in to quickly just because of that.

Frank has a very good point, it would be nice to be building model levels all the way and export/import. At the moment it has it's disadvantages indeed. I haven't experience collisionproblems yet, but you can't really program in the exact same way you would for block based levels. People using the templates on a modelbased level probably will have problems, or may have some problems.

About point 2.) by the way, I really hope Conitec fixes this, because unless we use a shader based shadow something like Sphere, it's a real killer. Shadows really bring games to life, perhaps one of the most important things visually are shadows. (Take a look at Max Payne 1 and it's radiosity lighting and shadows (no high end shaders), man I would give anything for shadows like that with almost zero fps loss in 3dgs.)

Cheers