I was happy with how the landing gear/pads looked, but not so happy with how strong they were. So I modified them to use cassette-like inserts into the wells, instead of the thin tube attachments from before.
Here are the 3 modified landing gears with their cassette attachments; the rear ones are at the top, the front one is lower right:
The rough (but strong) cassettes slot into the wells on the model, making for a tight and solid fit. There is no wobble, and the model feels much more rigid when sitting on its gear. Yet the cassettes are not visible, so aesthetically it looks just as good as before. Plus with the gear removed the doors on the wells can still close.
Here is a close-up of the front landing gear:
and one of the rear gears:
I also added the hinge to the cockpit canopy
and got started on the front VTOL fans:
These need to be a bit recessed into the body, so I am cutting them in half after constructing them.