odf: Blender interface is not ridiculous simply is different, but not that hard to learn, once you get it you'll understand how optimized is it for fast and efficient working.
UV unwraping in Blender works fantastic, you don't have to learn all about Blender to use its UV mapping funtions.

look at this tutorials
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1584
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1586

http://bgdm.katorlegaz.com/lscm_tute/lscm_tute.htm