It's funny this thread was resurrected because I had to make another sojourn to Broomall and my car mysteriously found a detour leading me to make a quick stop in at Nicholas Smith earlier this week. Sure enough, my eyes gravitated to those scale engines on the 6 to 7 foot high shelving. The French word, trompe l'oeil, comes to mind ~ tricking of the eye, or visual illusion. I have one or two of those engines (Lionel BiPolar was one), and sure enough not only do the shelved engines look more detailed but also larger at the higher elevations. Thus, detail and realism is one aspect as you've all noted, but the models look substantially larger; so much so if I was a newcomer into the hobby I'd bet a case of beer that they were a different scale than models viewed at lower elevations, and of course I would lose 
. Adequate or even subdued lighting, certainly not too bright, I suspect is also key in this trompe l'oeil effect. Towards that goal, I need to install my UV shields in my overhead florescent lighting.
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