i know lots and lots of people, by far the majority, find Wings easier.  i started on Wings, and i hated it.  all the tools were hidden.  it made no sense to me.  at all.  i tried Wings, Hexagon, 3ds Max, Animator, and Blender and found Blender by far the easiest to learn to model on.  that was largely due to the massive amounts of help i found online, but also due how simple it is to do things that are complex in other apps.  it's easy to start UV mapping.  it's easy to start sculpting.   it's easy to apply all sorts of modifiers and make pretty incredible stuff.  once you can basically use Blender, you can do an amazing amount.  you still need lots of skill and talent, but so far, i've had to learn more stuff but not more complex stuff.

i wouldn't say that learning the hotkeys is the big thing.  it's important, but the main reason it's important is for moving around.  you don't have to memorize scale and "grab" or translate, you can use a menu or a floating window to do that..  you can pull up a window to control your view properties.   you need hotkeys to pan, rotate, and such your views.  and if you switch to regular selection style, then you loose your ability to emulate a 3-button mouse (and a scroll button doesn't quite count), meaning you probably have to rewire your brain against every other app in existence to select with the right mouse button.  otherwise, you can go to the interface rather than hotkeys for just about anything.

the big things i've run into  are the fundamentals of 3d modeling, like dealing with  topology,  how to make soft and hard surfaces work without just wasting polys, how to come up with a good UV modeling and mapping procedure to make texturing easy, converting from paths to meshes, and other aspects you need to consider if you plan on working entirely on your own. 

personally, no matter what tool you use, i suggest mixing aimless playing, tutorials that match a specific goal and ones that just seem interesting, and planned and sketched projects.  in the past couple of months i've really been playing with Blender, and i made tons of stupid, time-consuming mistakes.     i think a lot of stuff just should have been better planned, some mistakes i just learned from, and some mistakes i'm not sure about yet.    but i really think that you should think about the overall production process when you're considering what's most comfortable and convenient for you.  and build a process instead of an object.  even if you're working with others, the important thing is that you optimize how you can build on your successes.  and the app you chose affects your process, and your process should be specific to you.

  for instance, i can draw in Illustrator well and quickly, so it's worth it for me to use a tool that can read Illustrator SVG files.  sure i could learn to make curves in another tool, but really, why?  i'd have to get incredibly good to match my 12 years experience with Illustrator.  whatever tool you use should work with your existing skills and knowledge as much as possible.  and, of course, fit what you want to make. 

what do you want to make?