1) Great paintjobs. love 'em all.
2) Agree on the proxy topic. If a mini looks cool and fit the bill, go for it (not liking the official Metal Gamins I've painted myself a DB mini I liked more. Pretty happy with the result).
3) I also partially lean toward the old metal sculpts. Some were plain ugly, but generally they were more weird and characterful. Rasputina and McMourning for example, are two minis that in metal were wildly better, imho.