I think in the context of the review/article, and the time in was written, the description of Bryce as being mediocre is fair. If you take away our familiarity with (and affection for) Bryce, could you honestly recommend Bryce to a new user over, say, Inspire, Cinema4D, or Truespace; which were being sold for not much more than Corel were touting Bryce for back then? The word "mediocre" has taken on such negative connotations nowadays that it actually sounds worse than "poor". If you check their ratings system, this is not what they're saying. Having said that, I would definitely rate their simplistic and inflexible ratings system as "poor". Speaking of context, in the context of Bryce's original purpose - i.e. a 3D package with an inclination toward natural landscapes - I think that Vue has surpassed it in almost every respect. With a nod to tjohn's well made point about the artist being more important than the brush, I still argue that Vue does Bryce's original job much better than Bryce does - it's simply a much better 3D landscape brush. I offer as evidence the Vue gallery here. Compare the best rankings there with the best Bryce rankings. More and better natural landscapes. Could a good Bryce user do as well? Almost certainly. But next to none are. Why? I would argue because Vue is the better tool in that respect. You can paint a wall with a 1 inch brush, but more walls are painted with six inch brushes...