Quote - Basically without involving cost, is Blender as 'featured pack' as LW?

Well, what features are you looking for?  I'm not terribly familiar with Lightwave's features myself, but if you tell us what you want out of a 3d package we might be able to help you there. 

Blender really does have a lot of the features of some of the high-end packages out there, though, and it's constantly improving.  If you want an example of stuff blender can do when pushed to its fullest, check out the open movie projects:
http://www.elephantsdream.org/
http://peach.blender.org/