Why were you at a dead end? It doesn't look like you've made anything that couldn't be done with Max.
The dead end was that there were no 3D modules for BlitzMax (at the time), and I wasn't going to waste time making my own.
And now that you mention it, I really doubt the things I'm currently working on could be done in BlitzMax - things like this and this and this and this. Well, they could, but not anywhere near the same frame rates.