First of all, thank you for a nice review of my work. It is always such a warm feeling when somebody likes what you did. And yes, all applied techniques (paining, detalisation, weathering and photo) were used to make it as up to scale as possible. And also, for my personal opinion, a model must be attractive. This is achievable through brightness and contrast (again, for my personal opinion).
No. They are of course not so thin as the photoetched parts. This is about correct shape and not about the thikness. Those copper details were not correctly curved.