I stumbled on this recently, a really good overview and dissection of what makes a great game level. Worth a watch/read; good stuff! Designing Action: Defining the Encounter in Games
If you shouldnt see stuff like this at work dont click on links that say nudity, arguing over the defination of nudity is like arguing over the defination of "is".
that depends whether it looks how you want it to look. face-weighted normals isn't some defined method of building things - it just means that vertex normal direction is affected by the relative size (area) of the faces it's attached to and generally means you get nicer shading without manual intervention.
Really cool! Love the folds on the cloth, it's defined just enough to make it look realistic. I always have a problem with either overdoing it, or not making it defined enough..