I've tried farking around with the _tech.pof files and they're not going to center. I can get centered loadout missiles by using the regular POF (removing the call to the $Tech Model: blah_tech.pof) but then the icons themselves are no longer centered, even though the model display part is.
For now, I'm living with perfectly centered tech models, irregardless of Icon state, since that's less frustrating visually.
I've noted though, that all the normal, non-modeled missiles (Rockeye, Tempest, etc) don't spin on center in the F3 screen. Did they at one point? I'm going to run through builds and see if there is one where they are and see what it does to the modeled missiles. (By modeled missiles, I mean the belial (Cyclops) crossbow (Harpoon), Helios, Hornet, Trebuchet and StilettoII).
I think the "animation" fix was more done by the exe code than anything else. Then, rather like the textures issues was "fixed" to how it was supposed to work vs how the files were made, so now they're "broken". (this of course is nothing more than a wild guess on my part and I'm likely wrong). The "more sane animated beamglows" work perfectly fine. No surprise, they're not ANI's. Though there are "beam-blah#.ani" in adveffects still.