A good portion of patience will be required for any program. I´ld say that with some practice, you´re capable to model just about anything in Bryce, except for realistic human characters.
I use C4D these days, but still use techniques i´ve learned and used with Bryce.

And for massive scenes, Bryce is still unbeatable. 
While all high end programs will start to crack at around 4-5 million polys, Bryce can handle a few hundred millions, and still render without issues. And that on an average system.

Rudolf Herczog
Digital Artist
www.rochr.com