No doubt about it, 3D viz is the way to go with most planning matters. Many people don't like change and the first reaction is to reject the new and different. Good visualisation can often head off planning objections at an early stage. ScottBold is certainly on the ball with this presentation. I would suggest the following tweaks: Turn off shadows in the Proposed Plan drawing, it can work in a perspective top view but maybe jars a little in what is still a 2D view. Same with the Proposed Block/Roof Plan. In the Proposed Overhead View turn off the 2D tree symbols (use the 3D trees only) & fence lines etc. Also, show the 3D models of existing buildings rather than 2D footprints (resolution on my laptop is not good so I could be mistaken in what I see). The section views are great and show the all important relationship to the existing buildings. For the Proposed Views (3D), again turn off any 2D symbols. If at all possible, consider re-composing the various views so that the height relationship to existing buildings is more favourable as is apparent in the Section views.

Well, I bought Sonder's book and had the Brightman one. Got to say, from a personal preference Sonder does work to a more design freedom approach. Brighton's is great, don't get me wrong, but the processes laid down I just felt difficult to maintain in those first creative stages where you are bursting with ideas and just want to get something done quickly. I think Nick Sonder has that at the core of his approach, that ultimately the more freedom you have, the better you'll design, which is why he avoids plugins that add complexity or lots of layers – he is striving to keep the workflow simple so that you design better. Glad I got both, I feel I am well on my way with my SU journey, even though I am making plenty of mistakes, I am starting to be able to produce some nice work already.

I expect you'll find that people do different things but for standard types of construction, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to draw entire structures with all that detail. Nick uses "canned" representative illustrations for those sorts of things. You should consider the time you'd have invested in placing all those entities and the return on that investment.