Interesting, the only two direction I could think of going artistically is ether 1.) 'the cockpit on Loose's original looked kinda sort of like the one on the Mongoose' or 2.) 'remember when the original in Battledroids was a straight up xerox of the Macross Zentradi Battle Pod? How about we go back to that but this time original like with the Marauder!'
I can see a argument to be made for both takes, especially for the later considering the number of old hats in the community who seemingly hate every anime but Macross and only complain the new stuff doesn't look enough like a xerox ;)