Relax, no one's ignoring you. This is a small forum, and some of us were doing this strange thing called 'sleep'.
(I usually try to avoid it, but every now and then my body betrays me!
)
I've never tried to 'skin' the UI per se, but I have replaced several of the dialogs in my copy to add new features. Most of the dialogs are in TCL, so it's easy to go in and modify whatever you like. The plug-in interface is also good.
Customization, frankly, is one of the primary selling points of AC3D for me. I also like it because it is inexpensive, and very easy to use.
I know this isn't true for most people, but I also *heavily* make use of the TCP\IP interface. A lot of programs have slave renderers, but very, very few allow modeling by remote interface. A lot of times I get jobs that involve cleaning up and converting a few hundred models. Usually, the jobs involve things like unifying normals or fixing scale, so a simple file converter won't do. AC3D's TCP\IP interface will let you run any command--including custom commands added by plug-ins--which makes these kinds of conversion jobs achievable. I have a site license, so I can set up three or four computers with AC3D and control them all from a central "macro server" and complete the job in a very short time.
As for your gingerbread men... how many polys? What kind of video card do you have?