Quote - o.k., then - for spaceships, strata may be good, but carrara may well handle figure posing better.

Without a doubt.  :-)

Quote - I still think Bryce 5.5 can render just as well as, if not better than, Strata.  And I think Bryce 5.5 is still free.

You know I have to say I am often surprised by the high quality of renders I see coming out of Bryce.  But I think it comes down to one's willingness to put up with the Bryce interface long enough to set up a good render that really holds it back, secondly I just don't think it has the versatility and different rendering options of most 3D programs.  But again it all comes down to the artist.  If a good artist wants to create a great image and is willing to put in the time they can do it with PC paint.

Quote - But Carrara renders much better than both.

It's all subjective so it's hard to definitively say what renders best.  I can say Carrara renders many times faster, and I can say Carrara has a very nice renderer. I can even say Carrara probably does a better job rendering landscapes.  But I'm a long way from agreeing that it's a better renderer overall. Especially in terms of quality or accuracy of shadows, reflections (blurred) and refraction.  There is a cost to that accuracy to be sure.  I can set Carrara's setting as high as they go to get close.  But full raytracing and/or raydiosity for every object and pixel is going to have its advantages at the cost of speed.

I haven't seen anything rendered in Carrara that compares to the studio lighting setups by Chris Tyler in Strata.  Then again I'm new here so if you wanted to point me to some high-quality renderings, in that vein, done in Carrara I'd love to see them.  I'd love nothing more than to be able to drop Strata entirely and make Carrara my full-time program.