These were fully 3-D, with objects, but they did not integrate with the practices in offices at that time. Therefore, electronic drafting is what sold. We didn't realize the power of the cultural inertia in these industries. Now, this second attempt is more interesting. In part it is motivated by the CAD vendors, who need expanding markets, so they are investing the money in educating the profession about modeling, getting the contractors on board, seeding the schools.
Web access opens new opportunities to connect information across different formats and platforms.
And architects like Frank Gehry and Greg Lynn are leading the way in blob architecture, which requires modeling rather than drafting. There is another chance to link 3-D with property information for things such as energy and costing. However, there will never be a single building model with all the data for all the disciplines. Even if you could do it, you wouldn't want to. It has links to all the structural software vendors.