I think that's the best solution.
BTW, would that be possible to make a SEXP which would execute these effects in-game (of course, FS2 style effect would not have the grid)?
They'd make a great way to do combat cloaking.
Also, are different materialization styles possible to implement? Currently, I can think of simple fade in/out being useful for some mods that wouldn't like to use neither FS2 nor FS1 style effect (when controlled in mission by SEXP, an additional argument could be used to set the fade time, which could come in really handy for mission designers).