I'm new to Vavoom, I've kinda given up with GZDoom, this seems to have all the GZDoom stuff though so I should be able to move my old project across and start revamping it, can't wait to see these shadows. I also think it's a good idea your finishing with the software renderer it'll only slow the port down, a half decent system these days should run opengl/d3d so I don't see the point in a software renderer, really less work with a software renderer means more with with gl/d3d features, I'd love to see some shaders but that's a lot to ask for I think, md2s are nice for now but if you do go for another format md5 would be a good choice, my opinion here though.
My mod has been offline for quite some time now but got pretty using using models (only used sprites for particles so monsters, etc had no sprites only models) but I might bring it back using vavoom, if it can do everything gzdoom can do then for me this is the best port out there lol (jdoom looks nice but that's jsut about it really wud never mod on it, gzdoom is dying now by the looks of it and vavoom seems to be ahead of it now).
I'm going to try this port when I get home and hopefully my mod will run on it. Prog scripts seem good too.