Just a note that Greg is also working on it. IC and GT are getting closer than we ever expected.
It seems that basic GT functions may be slowly replaced by IC.
As you said, what IC needs is something industrially cool to play with, like vehicles, planes, industrial weapons (i'm looking at you industrial conflict) and whatever fancy thing we may want, for the sake of fun, not utility.
*coughflan'smodcough*
But seriously, ic2-style vehicles would be cool. Because, well, Flan's mod vehicles are just things with models that slide across the ground/float in the air.