Zenvidar,
Just a few comments on your original post regarding phases of construction. First, I agree with you. That is one thing I thought would be great to see in any MMO. Watching your evil tower rise slowly from the volcanic rock to strike terror in all the unworthy maggots of Layonara. Hmm ... but I digress ... what you are looking for is something like what you see in Age of Empires.
The issue with this is the shear amount of time it takes to accomplish this task. Essentially you are looking at 3 - 4 versions of the same model. As one of the modelers, I can honestly say this is a huge task especially if we are talking for many types of buildings. 80 - 90% of all the models (buildings, items, avatars) you will see in the game have been made by the team. This includes the rigging, skinning, animation and basic geometry. While, my voice is certainly not the final word on the subject, I would not expect to see this on the initial launch or for quite sometime. I do like the idea though, as long as I don't have to make all those models
*sneaks away before Thak tasks him again*