That much hasn't changed, nopoop. Still doing rivets by hand.
The skins are more complicated now, with separate Specularity, Power, Environmental, and Normal maps in addition to the default map. These maps more or less take the place of the old materials.txt file and allow the skinner greater flexibility and control of how the skin looks - we can specifically target shiny and reflective spots whereever we want on the skin, as opposed to setting a single value that was applied to the entire skin.
The bar has been raised, but the results are IMO much better.