Thank you for the write up :) Great article, and she's a different breed from the old Mad Dog but you can see the heritage for sure, sure she's not an optimised design, but then again, optimised designs are all kinds of dull.
The mini is sort of a halfway measure compared to the nightmarish arms of the Savage Wolf. It's the same problem at the shoulder- small connection points make for a very difficult area to glue, the shapes are almost identical. However, the elbow (where the upper arm meets the weapon pod) isn't a separate glue point, it's fused into one piece. Mine is still unassembled (it's a project for this fall at some point), but having cleaned up the parts last night I was very displeased to see those familiar shoulders. (On the bright side, same legs too, and those were pretty easy to build compared to other recent multi-piece legged messes.)
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=45457.msg1047204#msg1047204
It can be pinned, however the mini is just soo ugly. They based the mini on the DA sculpt and not on the 3145 Merc Cover art, a real shame.
Odds are that the mini was done from the DA mini at the same time that they were both doing the art for 3145. It may even predate it but I'm not willing to bet on that.