You raise an interesting point about about features and price.  I would add interface intuitiveness and render quality to that mix and I think you have the all the major components that determine why someone chooses the 3D platform they do.

You could almost make sense of it all except for Blender--the 3D app that does it all for free, but with a weird interface.

C4D is awesome, but I don't like their modular pricing scheme and ultimately it becomes too expensive.  I already weighed my options for price vs. features and I landed on Carrara.  I'm still getting up to speed with it but I like what I see so far.  I've used Strata 3D, Electric Image, C4D, Bryce, Wings 3D, Silo, and several others to some extent.  They all have their pros and cons, some are expensive and some are free.

In the end, you use the software that helps you make the best pictures, and the more you do that the more you'll realize it has less to do with the software and more to do with the artist.