IIRC FS engine uses a static mesh object format - namly pof - with the exception of rotating parts (so you could create hangar doors), so it can use static data for collision detection.
A complicated code be created to handle axially moving parts, however your hands would still be tied as long as the current format is used. Moving on to a more dynamic format with numeral moving subobjects and a dynamic collision detection to go witht it would open up a huge range of possibilities.
The hard part would be converting all the old crafts, but even if I'm optimist enough to think that a simple converter could be devised, the huge work is still present that most of the base of rendering would have to be reworked, along with the already complicated collision code.
So you can ask for axially moving parts, but even coding those could lead to a range of problems, and doing the major new format would be a project as big as the DX8 branch or the HT&L, while such important things like AI upgrade or the new interface are still wainting to be created - without speaking of simulated speech or Bob's current projects.