Anim8or Community

The Makmat 160mm is a mortar mounted on a Sherman chassis adopted in 1968 and used to this day. I decided to model it using Anim8or.
Here is the main reference image I'm using:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/524/makmat160beythatotchan2bi8.jpg

I was originally aiming to keep the whole thing under 10k faces but while working on it I decided to go for a more detailed model. Here is what I've got so far, which amounts to about 29k polies:


Here's a more close-up look at the front wheel comparison:


I'd love to hear any opinions and suggestions.

Raytraced:

I was wondering if it's possible to change certain things in Anim8or's GUI that don't seem to be editable with the preferences options that I could find.
For instance, anim8or uses a blueish hue 666699 for the background, is it possible for me to change this color? I know I can change it for the render, but what about the workspace?

In a Scene, there's a flat surface made of white and gray squares; can I remove or edit this surface?
On the left side of every Mode there's a set of buttons; is it possible for me to move them, change them, etc? for instance, lets say that in the Object mode's Point Edit I want to remove the Slide and Extrude Edges buttons, but put Merge Points and Fill Holes buttons there (those two are normally located under "Edit"), is it possible for me to do so?

What of those is possible and how can it be done?