Figured it out. Near clipping is non zero and the prefab was created with a default value of -9 for some reason. Had to change the player prefab z-dimension to 0.
Do that in Kismet - the camera the player sees through probably isn't spawned until the game starts. Whatever camera you've connected it to there, is not the one you're looking through.
An entire console library of free to play games suggests to me that most games will never see a dime, and only a handful with a large number of players will get anywhere.
Update: I realized I left the player visible, with a few tweaks I'm calling it finished now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDb5djBOWe0&feature=youtu.be
I ended up using Physics.OverlapSphere to check if there is an object there which is working well it also means there is no chance of a pickup spawning where a player is which is an added bonus.
Protoss is going to be the 3rd expasion, this was planned since SC2 was announced. I'm sure there's going to be a few protoss single player missions, just like the first game.
It's possible to rip models from any 3d viewport/player/game. There's no way to prevent it, the model data has to be sent to the GPU where it can be ripped out.
also need consider, if some player got partial of your item set, it gonna be matching with other item / stock item too... so it won't be clipping on it