Being the opposite of a model expert, how hard would it be to create static versions of creatures that one could mount on a pedestal? Just a plain static object. If you can explain, I'd love to hear how.

pretty easy. in any pose you could want as well.
from max- Import creature+ skeleton. pose. either by importing an anim and skipping to the frame you want, or manual posing. Snapshot the mesh. throw a collision mesh over it, export the mesh as a static. change 3 things in nifskope.

While I was waiting for a reply, I stripified a creature in Nifskope then copied the NiTriStripData and pasted over the same node in a static object (a crate) then did the same for the texture set. Then manually changed the collision to fit the creature as it was just a cube and had only 8 points; changed the havok material and voila - it seemed to work in the game.

Not that using a modeling tool (I use Blender, sort of...), would be better to get a perfect collision mesh and a nice pose. I'll have to try that method.