I only wish I had more free time- I would be re-texturing a large part of your collection at this point, because so many of those designs are perfect for civilian ships that would really add a lot of variety to FL and not look too out-of-place
Unfortunately, I'm major-ly tied up getting the next version of the XML Toolkit Mod done. The Bandit will be featured, among other new ships. I originally assigned it to the Red Hessians, but I've had time to think about things and I've decided that I'm going to make another version of the Toolkit at some point, with the proper number of ships for every Faction (to go along with the new balance formulae I'm working out- the game design will have enough "room" for this many designs to be interesting). I don't have time for such a major undertaking at the moment, and I want to release WOS B2 before I get to that... so let me know how you're progressing on your quest.
As for advice... my best advice is to read through "How to Skin", and study the processes and software I use to make texturemaps. It isn't the "only" way to go about things, but in my opinion... it's one of the easiest, and it works like a charm for imports into MS3D