The only thing missing from Scan Essentials is texturing from the point cloud.
I currently have to use both point cloud toolsets: Scan Essentials and Undet. In my opinion, the former is easier to actually model from, but Undet has the ‘Texture from point cloud’ functionality, and I really need that for my workflows. So, alas, I purchase both.
I’ve spoken to the product team and told them it would absolutely be my number one feature request, but I just need to reiterate that - after more models than I care to admit - if Scan Essentials could apply the point cloud RGB values to the surface in the same way as Undet, they’d have an awesome tool on their hands.
End begging, lol.
Can scan essentials create meshes now?
It creates meshes relative to the z-axis, but it doesn’t do plane or edge detection like Undet. In my experience, those functions in Undet (as well as in Revit) aren’t that good anyway and I find it’s just easier for me to model the surface manually.
But if you wanted to create a wall using the “create ground mesh” function, you can rotate the point cloud on the x/y axis’ so the wall is like a “ground”, and it’ll do it.
I have not used Scan Essentials recently … because very early on I opted for a 3-year Undet license. But in my opinion another advantage of the Undet toolset over Scan Essentials is Undet’s direct connection to the Undet (Point Cloud) Browser. I find this facility very useful.
Meanwhile, creating meshes directly from the point cloud is oftentimes NOT all that useful for me …because typically my remodeling clients want an “as-built” SketchUp model where everything is orthogonal and/or parallel.
I can imagine if the model is only documenting a building for historical purposes … then “removing” these “imperfections” may not be desirable.
And then there is the whole extension debacle.
Trimble likes to promote extensions. But they don’t like to support them … unless it’s a Trimble extension. Thus, once a facility is rolled out as a Trimble extension … third party extensions (like Undet for modeling from point clouds or Enscape for photorealistic rendering) are ultimately doomed.
Similar to you, I require good orthogonal/parallel objects in my models, but on the other hand one of the main reasons I like being able to texture from the point cloud is I can create a lower-polygon object for those imperfect areas, and have the texture applied so at least the customer can see/review it.
Horses for courses I guess. “Orthogonal” and “as built” seem to be a contradiction in many properties which is why I work from point clouds in the first place. If a wall leans out by 10mm or 100mm my models need to reflect that, the same if a corner is 90.5 or 91 degrees rather than 90 and undet is the tool for that job. Having said that it would be great to find an orthogonal building to work on one day 
LOL, my version of that is when people use “digital twin” for a simple 3D model with no real time data.
It reminds me of how often I find myself reminding people “…data ≠ information…”, but we all have to consider the application and it’s objectives to differentiate the two, right? If an imperfection like a wall leaning out by 10mm is due to shoddy workmanship or even decades of settling, but it isn’t structural, it’s pretty immaterial and not the kind of data I’m going to concern my models with. But if a retaining wall is leaning forward by 2° and we’re thinking of building something above it, you bet your butt that is going to be information I’m going to incorporate into my drawings.