Lately I've (yet again) started to get back into the swing of things. After a few days of munging through old code (old Golem stuff, the Accidental Library, etc...) I decided to take a different tack, and I downloaded the latest Ogre. I remember briefly trying to tinker with it once, a few years ago; after experiencing a large amount of frustration just trying to get it to build, I set it aside and never touched it again. This time, though, I got it built and the example apps up and running without the slightest hitch. Vast improvements there.
After a couple weeks playing with it, I'm hooked. I honestly don't see the need to continue tinkering with the Golem3D engine. While it was getting to the "okay" point, it yet needs a lot of work to be production quality, and there is just no point in dumping more time into it.
So I've built a few little small test apps, along the lines of figuring out the system, and I think I have a pretty good handle on it now. Gonna try to get something done with it.