After reading the recent posts here and on the other forum I now find it hard to judge this picture. It still reads OK to me but I have witnessed every stage of its development here so I already know what the space should look like and as such I can't really say how a viewer would react having only seen the final image without any a priori knowledge. I guess this is a problem every artist has with every picture they paint. The artist is painting things that evoke the idea that's already in their head whereas the new viewer is expecting more explanation. It's at this point that you leave behind design and technical skill and move into the area of visual communication and perhaps that's where your next progression and improvement will come from.
I think with this picture your progress has stalled a little by focussing for so long on greyscale. By doing that you only have one tool to play with- Light vs Dark- and you seem to have pushed the contrast right to the limit pointing the focus on the orb and flare while pushing the rest into darkness. Perhaps trying out some quick studies in colour could give you ways to explore more options to control the viewer's gaze by playing with Warm vs Cool hues and varying saturation to communicate the more distant forms and space without having to take the focus away from the bright foreground areas.
Also on the issue of camera angles, this is maybe where 3D models would help. Not as an underdrawing but as a way to quickly explore different angles to find the most dynamic and explanatory view. Quite a lot of your pictures have a high, godlike viewpoint looking down at an angle from a distance. This does allow you to see more of the surrounding space and context but can sometimes, especially with closed off interiors, neutralise all the hard perspective work that you put in resulting in a kind of view like those old, isometric video games. A lower angle from closer in would give a bit more drama and connect you more to the figures and allow them to tell a bit of the story. The downside is the increased complexity of the image and the difficulty of representing all of that space in a single, more cropped picture. I guess the decision you have to make is what type of image you want to create: one based on design like a three dimensional blueprint explaining the environment or something more cinematic showing some kind of action taking place. Both kinds of image are valid and both often appear in concept art but the decision is always yours to make.
And I'm not sure if any of that helps.
Like I said, the image is still understandable to me, already knowing your intentions and ambitions as I do, so perhaps you just need to come at it with fresh eyes. You've already shown that you can manipulate and rotate objects in space so I'm sure you'll eventually get to the picture that you want.
Edit: Also I got the latest issue of IFX the other day (issue 127) and there's a tutorial by Eliott Lilly that reminded me of you. Lots of high tech pipes and cables.