I've tried and modelled stuff in Max, LW and Hex2 - I seem to have the ability to knock out nice basic designs/concepts - but man the UV mapping has killed me every time - and there's always a few nasty poly-crunches here and there. If anyone wants to be a Pro L33t texturer, I'd suggest following others advice and get Zbrush (keep an eye on Mudbox which is supposed to be better for beginners despite being pro-built) or BodyPaint(?) - any stable programme that allows you to paint/drag textures directly onto the model in realtime and give you the full range of mapping choices (LW's in particular was insanely bad with version 7.5).

I totally understand why production houses break up the skill sets along the pipeline - very rare to get someone like Stonemason who's good at everything (shakes fist at New Zealand - what do they put in the sheep down there? Lamb Chops must be the reason!).

Cheers