Lusztig's q-weight multiplicities are widely studied objects in the representation theory of semisimple Lie algebras. Those of type A are expressed combinatorially via the Lascoux-Schützenberger charge statistic on semistandard Young tableaux. Generalizing this formula to other classical types has been challenging. I will survey the recent progress, including the work of Choi-Kim-Lee relating the q-weight multiplicities of type C to the energy function on column-shape Kirillov-Reshetikhin (KR) crystals of type B. On another hand, with Adam Schultze, we gave a charge-type formula for the mentioned energy function in terms of the respective Kashiwara-Nakashima columns. This formula was derived from earlier work of mine with Satoshi Naito, Daisuke Sagaki, Anne Schilling, and Mark Shimozono on the quantum alcove model for KR crystals. Thus, by combining these results, we can compute any q-weight multiplicity of type C. I will suggest avenues for extending and refining these results, including the potential use of machine learning.