Quote - No, and I don't expect it ever would - however in this context it's not a factor.  It's just as true to say a flaw of the Autodesk products is that they don't have a connection to C4D's Advanced Render (not that it's the be-all end-all either).  Are there some major features that Mental Ray has over any other big-price render engine? 

Well, as you pointed out, in this context it wouldn't have much of an advantage over other high end render solutions like Vray or FinalRender, but specifically for a large production pipeline, yes it does have big advantages  in it's modularity and scalability.  Specifically, it's value is in it's MI scene description language and Phenomena, which can be used by technical directors to program it with additional functionality for very specific rendering tasks.  This makes it extremly useful for demanding production, where other renderers, aside from perhaps PRman, wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_0_mentalray/index.html

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.