I don't know what has spurred this on, and it is completely undeserved. (But thank you!)
The best reward of it all is when being able to know at times that others are enjoying seeing or experiencing something that I have made, so thank you Huub and everyone for you very kind posts! For me it has always been the Michael Flahault's, Darrin Covington's, Damian Radice's, Alessandro Biagi's, and Martin Catney's - they are true masters of the craft, and those that I look up to, to try and do my best to somehow work to find the same level of quality. There's always that "ball at the end of the string", and it's what makes this hobby fun, since at one moment, you might think you have just about done the best you can do, and just a week later, perhaps the very next day even, you find something else, most often just through experimenting, and suddenly now you look back at the work from just that short time ago, and it's lacking compared with what you have just now found and been able to achieve that you hadn't before.
Huub, it's always a bit difficult looking back at one's own work, as for me I always end up cringing quite a bit : ) but thank you for posting those screenshots of Gramps old P-51B/C model - it really brings back some great memories. I joined SOH in 2003, just after the release of FS2004, and it wasn't much longer that Gramps released the donationware P-51B/C, which I believe was the very first addon I spent any money on ($2 if I recall correctly!). I grew up around the un-restored hulk of the P-51C owned by the Minnesota Wing of the CAF (fairly much in my backyard), and in 2001 it flew for the first time following restoration, painted as "Tuskegee Airmen". It of course quickly became my favorite warbird at the time, and it was a thrill seeing Gramps' model show up not too long after getting involved with FS, and only a couple of years after the Minnesota Wing's P-51C had begun to fly quite often, in and around my local area.
It's been absolutely wonderful to be a part of this great community for so long, and sharing the experience, through all of the ups and downs. To Huub, Tom, Dave, Mike, Don, and Jan Kees, I'm extremely humbled by your posts, as well as by our other correspondance over the years - it's great to know you all, and share in this hobby together.