In short, I'm now pretty confident that I know what I'm doing, at least for now, and I'm getting on pretty well. I think that one of the things I may put into the Forgotten Futures Compendium is a deck plan of a Buck Rogers style spaceship, complete with silly antennae etc., as a sampler of things to come. Here's a screen shot of what I've done so far - as usual any mottling etc. is down to jpeg compression and won't be in the final files.
Anyway, many thanks to everyone who commented for persuading me to take the plunge. It's definitely worth it.