Interesting that you talk about using shape optimization leading to more manufactureable results than a continuum approach. What sort of manufacturing do you envision, welded tube frames, cast parts? The weird organic results you get from the free form simulations are often pretty easy to 3d print with something like SLS, as long as they don't have voids and thin features. The constraints on other manufacturing methods are a lot more complex.
Hopefully this is less academic than SIMPL by Brown U