I think part of the problem is when people start making comparisons and calling Carrara high-end. Carrara is a professional tool but it is not high-end and that is part of the reason I like it. High-end generally means quite deeply detailed and complicated (with the complexity comes more power however) but that is not what everyone wants.Carrara has lower-end implementations of high-end features which is exactly what I want. If people want the power of Maya or XSI (or any other tool) the best thing to do is to get them because no other application can replace them for what they are. As for mentioning other software, I have done it on occasion and I did not realise that mentioning freeware could be a bit rude on an application specific forum. I think I will refrain from now where it is not clearly the intent of the thread as some 3D forums do seem to have different rules and sensitvities to others which is easy to forget. I think honest discussion about an application is really important as devs can sometimes miss just what their customers want from them. A real balance is achieved when we can discuss what we think even when the discussion turns negative. As long as both the great amounts of praise or crit stay withn their respective threads without spilling out eveywhere on the forum it's all good.