@Trepz: Materials are much nicer in Vue, and easier to work with. So I model in Blender in the default material then export as .obj. It imports in Vue fine and at that point I stat playing with the materials.
Not having worked with any modeler until the last couple of months Blender hasn't seemed any more difficult than any of the others. I actually found Sketchup frustrating when I was trying to place objects and gave up on it. I will download truspace and give it a shot.
What I really would like to see is a few more modeling tools in Vue. If i could control and extrude individual vertices/edges/sides and paint on the 3d object I doubt I would ever need to look elsewhere.