Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Simple self selection would dictate that an honest assessment would have a heavily weighted upper end given the context of the site.

Honest assesment means taking a certified Mensa test. They're free, take about 1 hour and are given out regularly at local universities.

Once you have that certificate, look at it, smile, then put it away in some drawer somewhere so it doesn't gather much dust. Because nobody cares.

Actions define how people are perceived.

Sure, but that wasn't the question was it? Honest assessment is just that, it doesn't require an appeal to self selected "experts" on the subject.

UDK cons:

Ironclad network layout without a lot of flexibility.
Does well with pre-processed artwork but falls down pretty hard on dynamic assets.
UnrealScript is only of use with the Unreal Engine, so your knowledge doesn't travel with you to another engine.
A somewhat arcane series of config files and build chain.(Not horrible given the complexity of the engine but still witchcraft until you learn it.)

Unity cons:

Unity built in networking is pretty bad, however there are a few free or nearly free alternatives that will just plug and play.
Unity GUI is a resource hog and you'll be looking for an alternative if you push to a mobile device.
Unity is stuck on DX9 for the foreseeable future due to MAC compatibility issues(essentially they don't want two feature sets between windows and MAC)

Both have great toolchains, both have great communities. The workflow for Unity is more intuitive if you're coming from an art background for certain. Unity can be coded in C# or javascript or boo so at least you work in a language that exists outside the bubble of the engine and Unity can take advantage of much of the .Net libraries .

The short answer is to try both of them. I prototyped the same game in both engines and found I was 3 to 5 times more prolific in Unity using C# but for the art that could be pre-processed UDK generated a prettier render.

When I tried to "color outside the lines" it felt like UDK fought me a lot harder where with Unity you can beat it into shape pretty easily if you have a decent mastery level of the scripting language.

If we take the textbook definition of intelligence, there is no doubt Id have to rate myself a ten. The majority of people here would have to do so. As the above table shows, you dont have to be an insane super genius to be in the tenth percentile of intelligence. Everybody with a CS or other STEM degree almost certainly is. Again, that is, assuming your ten point scale linearly maps to the textbook definition of intelligence. But you seem to be asking for a more subjective impression.

But by any subjective standard, id also rate myself a ten. I have my shortcomings, as does everybody, but the number of people I know who really inspire me as being a better person than myself, in the sense that the thought of trading places with them wouldnt be utterly laughable; I can count them on my fingers (the number of people who have one or more traits that I envy is considerably larger, but im talking averages). No way that id trade places with one in ten people I know; which is a group of people already highly selected for perceived awesomeness. Perhaps that is indeed more a measure of arrogance than anything else, but there you have it. 10/10.

I rated myself a 10 as i'd guess most responders should have. Whom here isn't in the top 10% of demonstrable intelligence? Simple self selection would dictate that an honest assessment would have a heavily weighted upper end given the context of the site.

Some faux-modest wankery is the likely culprit that is imitating Dunning-Kreuger.

I've signed up for Rift, the new MMO going into open beta tomorrow. One aspect of it is procedural rifts that open up randomly on the map. They are attuned to a specific element like earth, wind or fire. If left unattended they evolve into footholds, then ultimately fortresses. So they must be dealt with or else they effectively invade the player map.

It's not enough to build a full game on but it's a good example of procedural content that adds to the game via mechanics instead of costly custom content generation.

but this also allows it to scale massively.

Just beware of the cost. If it scales massively, GAE will bankrupt you. And as always, there is no free lunch. For anything "massively", nothing will scale just out of box. Most cases where such scaling is talked about would run quite happily on a single multi-core box on a dedicated server.

Another thing to consider is that in case of problems with GAE, unless you're a big customer, you're likely out of luck. Amazon tends to be somewhat better.

Not to pick a fight but that's counter to the information I have in both regards. GAE is cheaper than EC2 in every meaningful metric. It does "just scale" out of the box. There are some development hurdles to over come because the topology requires you to alter your workflow such that it WILL scale.

I did mention no SLA, it's a decision you have to get comfortable with before you decide to go GAE.