You always hear the question: "How did you get into the hobby?", and for me it was getting bored with assembling fighter jet models.
I could never afford the good jet kits either, lol. Plus those things had a ton of components, we're spoiled by Games Workshop when it comes to piece count, believe me.
Back at the turn of the century with the release of 3rd Edition (or "corporate") 40k, all relevant units were updated for that rules set in the back of the book.
Lets just say for a brief period, the warwalker was quite a popular unit and leave it at that.
The armor value was updated when their codex was released in the early 2000's, but starcannons and Iyanden craftworld builds (from the Craftworld codex) rose to particular prominence shortly thereafter.
What do you remember of these dark times? -MBG