Although PMDG decided not to go for 2D cockpit / panels, I was wonderingwhat the cause of their decision was ?Is it so that 2D cockpits / panels are so hard to build then ?Because I was always under the impression that the VC the hard part was...

At least for us, the VC is much less time consuming to do. It might be harder for companies that don't have a really experienced VC modeler like Vin. (who has a ton of professional modeling experience outside FS) The 2D panels are very time consuming to do because you essentially have to make a bunch of versions of it for different lighting levels etc. All the switch motion and so on are separate bitmaps and so on - in a VC you texture it all once and that's it. Not doing the 2D is one of the ways we were able to get both the price and the development time on the J41 down to what they are/were.

Thanks for the clarifying...